
Qass„___ 

Book n 




THE 



STORY OF MY LIFE. 



BY 

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, 

AUTHOR OF "THE IMPROVISATORE," "WONDER STORIES TOLD 
FOR CHILDREN," ETC. 



NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, 



AND 



CONTAINING CHAPTERS ADDITIONAL TO THOSE PUBLISHED IN THE DANISH EDITIO*, 
BRINGING THE NARRATIVE DOWN TO THE ODENSE FESTIVAL OF 1867. 



3fiutf)ot'g <£bition. 




NEVTYORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON. 

Camfcrfrsfc: Etbcr^Oie Pre*.. 

By ire?9?' r 
MAR 30 1917 



-ff^ 



8 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S71, by 

Hurd and Houghton, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



By Transfer 

MAR 30 1917 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



I 



^1 ar o e - 



ADVERTISEMENTS^/?}', 




THE Autobiography of Hans Christian Andersen 
now presented to the English speaking public is 
not a work prepared and published at one time, but it 
is consecutive and complete. 

In 1846, on the occasion of a uniform collected edition 
of his writings to be published in Germany, Andersen 
wrote a sketch of his life under the title " Das Marchen 
meines Lebens." This was translated by Mrs. Howitt 
and published in England, with the name, " The True 
Story of My Life," and has been abbreviated at different 
times to accompany various editions of his Stories and 
of " The Improvisatore." 

In 1855, when a uniform Danish edition of his writings 
was published, Andersen rewrote his autobiography, ex- 
panding the material given in the sketch, but frequently 
using passages identical with that, and bringing the nar- 
rative to the date at which he wrote. This enlarged 
autobiography has not before been translated into Eng- 
lish, and the present translator, following Andersen's 
plan with his own sketch, has incorporated Mrs. Howitt's 
translation when it was available, but added all that was 
new in the Danish edition. 

A third time, prompted by a similar occasion, the au- 
tobiography has been extended. Upon the proposition 
of the American Publishers to bring out, by arrangement 
with the author, a uniform edition in English of Ander- 
sen's writings, including the autobiography, the author 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

set about bringing that work to the date of 1867, termi- 
nating it with an account of the great Festival at Odense, 
which he looks upon as the crowning honor of his life. 
He sent his manuscript to America for translation and 
special publication in connection with this edition. 

The Publishers congratulate themselves and the pub- 
lic that their undertaking has thus drawn from the eminent 
author a further account of a life which Andersen fondly 
calls " A Wonder Story." 

The portrait prefacing the volume is from a recent 
photograph. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I; 

April, 1805 — September, 1819. 

PAGE 

Birth in Odense. — Description of Birth-room. — My Father. — A 
Family Festival at the House of Correction. — Odense Sights. — 
The Spaniards in Funen. — My Father's Mother. — The Lunatic 
Asylum. — My Weak-minded Grandfather. — My Introduction to 
Learning at an A B C School. — My Teacher, Mr. Carsten. — 
Gleaning in the Harvest-field. — My First Visit to the Theatre. — 
My Father's Reading. — His Enlistment in the Army. — His Death. 

— My Introduction to Madame Bunkeflod. — My First Dramatic 
Work. — I try to learn a Trade. — My Mother's Second Marriage. 

— Our House by the Monk-mill's Gate. — I am noticed for my Voice 
and Dramatic Action. — Introduction to Prince Christian. — My 
Confirmation. — " The Red Shoes." — I wish to seek my Fortune. 

— The Printer Iversen gives me a Letter to a Copenhagen Celeb- 
rity whom he does not know. — I leave Odense and set out for the 
Capital 1-24 

CHAPTER II. 

September, 1819 — October, 1822. 

Arrival at Copenhagen. — My First Ramble to the Theatre. — I call 
upon Madame Schall. — Then upon the Manager of the Theatre. — 
" Paul and Virginia." — In Search of Employment. — A Call upon 
Siboni, and upon Weyse. — Siboni's Character. — A Patron is found 
in the Poet Guldberg — I lodge innocently in a Suspicious House. 

— My First Appearance on the Stage. — New Year's Day and an 
Omen. — At the Singing-school. — The Colbjornsons. — Professor 
Thiele's Encouragement. — Urban Jurgensen's Mother. — My First 
Tragedy, " Afsol." — Admiral Wulff. — Conference Councilor Col- 
lin. — I am to be sent to School 25-44 

CHAPTER III. 

October, 1822 — December, 1828. 

School Life at Slagelse. — The Rector. — Mr. Bastholm's Good Ad- 
vice. — My Grandfather's Death. — His Riches with Wings. — A 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Visit to Odense. — School-days. — Antvorskov and its Legends. — 
Sorb and Ingemann's House. — Petit and Carl Bagger. — An Exe- 
cution at Skjelskjor. — My Diary. — I remove with the Rector to 
Helsingor. — The Rector's Secret Commendation of me. — My 
Vacations in Copenhagen.— Poetic Efforts. — Adam Oehlenschla- 
ger. — I remove to Copenhagen. — My Little Garret-room. — Par- 
odies on my Former Poetry. — Heiberg's " Flying Post." — Exam- 
ination for Title of Student. — My First Book, " A Journey on 
Foot." — Paludan Miiller. — My First Vaudeville. — My Second 
Academical Examination. — H. C. Orsted. — My First Volume of 
Poems 45-66 

CHAPTER IV. 

1830 — April, 1833. 

Travelling in Jutland. — A Visit to Iversen's Widow. — A Love Affair. 

— A Morbid Turn to my Thoughts. — My Sensitiveness. — A Trip 
into Germany. — Tieck. — Chamisso. — " Shadow Pictures." — 
Criticism. — Texts for Operas. — Acquaintance made with J. P. 
E. Hartmann. — The " Bride of Lammermoor." — " Kenilworth," 
for Weyse — Molbech and the " Monthly Review." — Henrik Hertz. 
— " Letters from the Dead." — I ask a Stipend from King Fred- 
erick VI. — I receive a Stipend for travelling. — Madame Lassoe. 

— Edward Collin 67-82 

CHAPTER V. 

April — September, 1833. 

Hamburg. — Cassel. — Spohr. — Frankfort. — The Rhine. — Arrival 
at Paris. — The Italian Opera. — Adolph Nourrit. — Mademoiselle 
Mars. — Danish Comrades. — Versailles. — Paul Duport, the Vau- 
deville-poet. — Cherubini. — Henrik Heine introduces himself to 
me. — Victor Hugo. — Letters from Home. — The Unveiling of 
Napoleon's Statue in the Place Vendome. — Louis Philippe. — The 
Festival. — P. A. Heiberg. — Brondsted. — I set out for Switzer- 
land. — Purari at Geneva. — Chillon. — Le Locle. — The Jiirgen- 
sen Family and my Home with them. — My New Poem, " Agnete 
and the Merman." — Departure from Le Locle . . . 83-98 

CHAPTER VI. 

September, 1833 — August, 1834. 

By the Simplon into Italy. — Milan. —Genoa. — The Arsenal. — The 
Journey from Genoa to Carrara. — Pisa. — Our Small-minded 
Guide. — Florence and its Galleries. — The Miseries of Travelling 
in Italy. — The Water-fall at Terni. — Rome. — The Second 

Funeral of Raphael. — Thorwaldsen. — Albert Itiichler. — A Ram- 



CONTENTS. Vii 

PAGB 

ble among the Mountains. — Dulcamara and Bandits. — Anotner 
Excursion to Tivoli. — Artist-life in Rome. — Christmas Eve and 
its Festival. — Home Opinions of " Agnete." — Hertz and I become 
Friends. — I travel with him to Naples. — Excursion up Vesuvius. 

— Suggestion of "The Improvisators " — Easter at Rome. — 
Wieusseux. — Venice. — I recross the Alps. — Munich. — Schelling. 

— Passport Experience. — Salzburg. — Golling Fall. — Molk Mon- 
astery. — Vienna. — Strauss. — Madame Von Weissenthiirn. — 
Castelli. — Journey to Prague. — A Bohemian Library vanishes. — 

M The Improvisatore," its origin, composition, and publication 99-131 

CHAPTER VII. 

1835 — 1838. 

A Change in Public Opinion of my Work. — Hauch the Poet. — I pre- 
sent my Book to Prince Christian. — German Appreciation. — Eng- 
lish Translation by Mary Howitt. — Other Translations in Various 
Languages. — I bring out the First Part of my " Wonder Stories." 

— "O. T." — " Only a Fiddler." — Soren Kierkegaard. — Hauch's 
Criticism. — My First Visit to Sweden. — Meeting with Fredrika 
Bremer. — Stockholm — Scandinavian Fellowship. — Increased 
Productiveness in Literature. — The Collins. — Insignificant Re- 
turns for Literary Work in Denmark. — Count Rantzau-Breitenburg. 

— I receive a Pension from Government .... 132-145 

CHAPTER VIII. 
1839— 1841. 
New Confidence. — The Part played by the Theatre in Danish Life. 

— My Success and Disappointment. — " The Invisible at Sprogo." 

— M The Mulatto." — Death of Frederick VI. — A Swedish Ovation. 
— " The Picture-book without Pictures." — I discover Friends 
when I am about to leave Denmark. — En route for Home. — Men- 
delssohn at Leipsic. — At Munich with Hoist. — Kaulbach. — Once 
more in Rome. — Satire at Home. — With Hoist to Naples. —The 
Fontane del Trevi. — On the Mediterranean. — A Month at Athens. 

— " Ahasuerus." — In the Archipelago. — Smyrna. — Constantino- 
ple. — The Voyage up the Danube. — The Return Home. — "A 
Poet's Bazaar." — The Spirit of the Criticism directed against me. 

— Misunderstanding and Envy 146-176 

CHAPTER IX. 

1 84 1 — March, 1844. 

Politics and Poetry. — Life in Manor-houses. — Winter Life in Co- 
penhagen. — - The Collin Family. — Oehlenschlager. — Thorwald- 
ser 177-185 



V1U CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

1842 — 1843. 

FAGB 

u The Bird in the Pear-tree." — Weyse. — Journey to Paris. — Rantzau- 
Breitenburg. — With Speckter at Hamburg. — Cologne. — Brussels. 

— Paris. — Marmier. — Victor Hugo. — Martinez de la Rosa. — 
Lamartine. — Dumas. — Rachel. — Alfred de Vigny. — David. — 
Madame Reybaud. — Balzac. — Heine. — " Only a Fiddler " in Real 
Life. — The Rhine. — Frieligrath. — Bonn. — Moritz Arndt. — 
Geibel. — Foreign Appreciation of my Writings. — Mr. Boas. — 
My Wonder Stories, their origin and reception . . . 186-206 

CHAPTER XI. 

1840 — 1844. 

Jenny Lind. — At Breitenburg. — Goethe's Family. — Weimar. — 
The Birthday of the Grand Duke. — Chancellor von Muller. — 
Leipsic. — The Schumanns. — Dresden. — Retsch. — The Serres 
at Maxen. — The Countess Hahn-Hahn. — Berlin. — Savigny. — 
Bettina. — Tieck. — I am invited by the King and Queen of Den- 
mark to visit them at Fohr. — The Journey. — The Reception at 
Wyck.— The Halligs. — The King's Kindness. — My Stipend in- 
creased. — The Duchess of Augustenburg .... 207-227 

CHAPTER XII. 
1844 — July, 1846. 

" Fortune's Flower." — Heiberg's Criticism. — " The King dreams." 

— "The New Lying-in Room." — A Mystification. — Death of 
Collin's Wife. — The Festival at Skanderborg. — Aarhuus. — Trav- 
elling. — A New Journey. — At Glorup. — Odense. — Henriette 
Hauck. — Gravenstein. — At Hamburg with Speckter. — The Liv- 
ing Fairy Tale. — At Oldenburg. — Mosen. — Mayer. — I read my 
Stories in the Grand Duke's Circle. — Berlin. — Rauch. — The 
Brothers Grimm. — Tieck. — A Christmas-tree with Jenny Lind. 

— Madame Birch Pfeiffer. — The Royal Family. — I read my Stories 
to them. — At Weimar. — Richter. — Jenny Lind. — Auerbach. — 
With Beaulieu to Jena. — Hase. — Leipsic. — Brockhaus. — Gade. 

— At Dresden. — The Royal Family. — At Prague. — Vienna. — 
Castelli. — To Trieste. — Ancona. — The Road to Rome. — In 
Rome for the Third Time. — New Love for Sculpture. — Jerichau. 

— Kolberg. — At Naples. — The Heat drives me to Sorrento. — 
I write " Das Marchen meines Lebens." — Josephsen. — At 
Naples again. — To Marseilles. — Ole Bull. — Reboul at Nismes. — 
Journey toward the Pyrenees. — The Terrible Heat. — Perpignan. 

— The Baths of Vernet. — The Close of this Section of my Life 228-274 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XIII. 

July, 1846— December, 1847. 

PACK 

From Vernet to Switzerland. — Avignon. — By Diligence to Lyons. 

— Freiburg. — Berne. — Basle. — Home by Strasburg and Ham- 
burg. — Hartmann's Opera with my Text, " Little Christine." — 
Orsted's Words respecting Poetry. — Interview with the King. — 
I set out for England. — To Holland. — Amsterdam. — Hospitable 
Reception. — Harlem. — Leyden. — The Hague. — Fanny Hensel's 
Widowed Husband. — A Reception at the Hague. — To England 
by Rotterdam. — Arrival. — First Impressions of London. — I 
enter Society at Lord Palmerston's. — Chevalier Bunsen. — Etiquette 
in London. — A Visit to Jenny Lind. — " La Somnambula." — Tag- 
lioni. — Lady Morgan. — At Lady Blessington's. — Count d'Orsay. 

— Charles Dickens. — Mary Howitt. — Frieligrath. — To the How- 
itt's at Clapton — High Life and Low Life in London. — Westminster 
Abbey. — A London Election. — To Edinburgh by York. — Ram- 
bles in Edinburgh. — Dr. Simpson. — Heriot's Hospital — Lord 
Jeffrey. — With Baron Hambro on an Excursion. — Loch Katrine. — 
Loch Lomond. — Dumbarton. — I reluctantly cut short my Trip. — 
The Travels of a Cane. — Return to London. — A Visit to Charles 
Dickens. — Return Home by Ostend and Hamburg. — Malice at 
Home. — I dedicate some Stories to Dickens. — " Ahasuerus." 

— Oehlenschlager's Criticism 275—331 

CHAPTER XIV. 
January, 1848 — March, 1851. 

Death of King Christian VIII. — Schleswick-Holstein War. — Letter 
to the London " Literary Gazette " in Defense of Denmark. — The 
Enthusiasm of Young Soldiers. — At Glorup in Camp. — The 
Swedes in Funen. — Intervention for a Prisoner. — " The Two 
Baronesses." — Centennial Anniversary of the Danish Theatre. — 
Fredrika Bremer's Visit to Copenhagen. — Lieutenant Ulrich. — 
A Visit to Sweden. — Gothaborg. — Trolhatta. — Stockholm. — 
The M Literary Society." — Introduction to King Oscar. — Visit to 
the Royal Family. — Madame Carlen. — To Dalarne. — Travelling 
in Sweden. — Fahlun. — The Prophecy of the Straws. — Upsala. — 
Return to Stockholm. — The Romance of Count Saltza. — At 

Linkoping. — Motala. — By Gothaborg to Denmark Publication 

of "In Sweden." — English Criticism. — Death of Oehlenschlager. 

— The Copenhagen Theatre. — The Casino. — Ole Luckoie. — H. 
C. Orsted and " Spirit in Nature." — Peace. — Death of Madame 
Hartmann. — Death of H. C. Orsted .... 332-382 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XV. 
1851 — April 1855. 

PAGE 

A Longing for the Country. — To Prague. — A Summer at Glorup. — 
A Soldier Festival. — A Visit to the Seat of the Late War. — To 
the Serres at Maxen. — The Bourbons for Travelling Companions. 

— The Title of Professor. — At Weimar. — Liszt and Wagner. — 
Munich. — With the Royal Family at their Country-seat. — To 
Switzerland. — Return Home. — "The Elder Mother." — A Visit 
to Ingemann's. — At Glorup. — With Michael Drewsen at Silke- 
borg. — A Collected Edition of my Writings. — I work at this 
Book for an Introduction. — A Feast given me by Students. — 
New Journeyings. — With Jenny Lind and her Husband in Vienna. 

— To Italy. — Another Visit to the Bavarian King Max. — Home 
by Way of Eisenach. — At Work upon my Collected Writings. — 
" A Village Story." — " Eventyr " and " HistorierP — Conclusion 

of " The Story of my Life " at this Date . ^ 383-409 

CONTINUATION. 

April, 1855, to December, 1867. 

1855. — Greeting to American Readers. — A Visit to Ingemann and 
his Wife. — The Nis Story. — Visit at Maxen. — Letter to Inge- 
mann. — At Munich. — Miss Seebach. — How I obtain Means for 
travelling. — Edgar Collin. — In Switzerland. — Auf Der Mauer. 

— Wagner in Zurich. — Spohr at Cassel. — At Weimar. — "A Vil- 
lage Story " , . 410-418 

\%tfi. — Correspondence with Ingemann. — " To be or not to be " 418-420 

1857. — A Visit to the Queen Dowager. — A Visit to England at 
Dickens's Invitation. — To Gadshill. — Dramatic Performance for 
Douglas Jerrold's Family. — Dickens's Unfailing Good-nature. — 
Leave-taking. — To Maxen. — A Letter to Dickens- — The Unveil- 
ing of Goethe's and Schiller's Statues at Weimar. — Liszt's Music. 

— Home by Hamburg. — Letter from Ingemann . . 420-429 

i%$$. — I read my Stories before the Mechanics' Association. — " The 
Marsh King's Daughter." — Letter from Ingemann. — Death of 
Henriette Wulff. — Verses on her Death .... 429-435 

xgtjQ. — « Little Christine." — A Visit at Frederick Castle. — I read 
a New Story to the King. — A Visit to Old North Wosborg. — 
Hamlet's Grave. — From Aalborg to Skagen. — The Bishop of 
Borglum. — A Haunted House. — Two Ghostly Experiences. — 
Skagen. — Jutland Hospitality. — At Ingemann's — My Pension is 
increased. — Christmas Eve at Basnos .... 436-451 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGH 

i860. —A Statue to H. C. Orsted. — Spring Travels. — In Holstein. 

— On my Way to Rome. — At Munich. — The Passion Play at 
Oberammergau. — To Le Locle. — Watchmaking. — In Geneva. — 
Heiberg's Death. — I give up Rome and spend my Christmas at 
Basnos 451-459 

1 861. — Travelling again with Jonas Collin. — To Nice and Genoa. — 
At Rome. — A Visit to Kiichler. — Bjornstjerne Bjornson. — I 
make his Acquaintance. — A Festival. — Bjornson's Verses to me. — 
The Sculptor Story. — Mrs. Browning. — Her Verses in my Honor. 

— The Journey Northward. — At Cavour's Funeral in Turin. — 
Milan. — In Switzerland. — A Festival at Einsiedeln. — At Home. 

— News of Old Collin's Death. — The Funeral. — A New Volume 

of Stories 459-468 

1862. — Letters from Ingemann, the King, and Bjornstjerne Bjornson. 

— The Four-leaved Clover. — Death of Ingemann. — Letter to his 
Widow. — The Funeral. — My Parting Words. — A Visit to Soro. 

— Christian Molbech. — The Celebration at Flensborg. — In Switz- 
erland at Brunnen. — Montreux. — A Poem suggested by the 
Place. — Jonas Collin and I set out for Spain. — A Flood at Barce- 
lona. — Valencia. — Cartagena. — To Malaga. — The Cemetery at 
Malaga. — A Strange Misunderstanding. — Granada. — The Queen's 
Entrance. — The Alhambra. — At Gibraltar. — A Visit to Sir Drum- 
mond Hay at Tangiers. — Cadiz. — Seville. — Cordova. — To Mad- 
rid. — The Spanish Capital. — Burgos. — Biarritz. — New Year's 
Eve in Bordeaux 468-489 

1863. — Gounod's " Faust." — Poictiers. — To Paris. — A Scandina- 
vian Festival at Bjornson's Suggestion. — At Home again writing out 
my Notes for " In Spain." — Death of King Frederick VII. —The 
Funeral Obsequies. — War breaks out. — "A Song of Trust " 489-497 

1864. — The War Enthusiasm. — The Prussian Successes. — A 
Dreary Time. — Depression, and work to throw it off. — A Visit to 
Madame Ingemann 497-503 

1865. — "The Spaniards were here." — Summer Journeying amongst 
Friends. — Journey to Sweden. — Stockholm. — The Henriques. — 
Visit to the Royal Family's Country-seat. — "Thou." — Fredrika 
Bremer. — Beskow's Party. — At the University Town of Lund. — 
A Welcome. — Return Home. — With the Royal Family at Fre- 
densborg. — Bournonville. — Waiting for the Time to visit Portu- 
gal 503-514 






1866. — An Invitation to Amsterdam. — Journey to Holland. — The 
Brothers Brandt at Amsterdam. — The Theatre. — The Zoological 



Xll CONTENTS* 

PAGB 

Gardens. — Verhulst. — Gade's Works. — Social Distinctions. — 
Miss Kleine Gartmann. — Ten Kate. — Leyden. — A Drive to the 
Mouth of the Rhine. — The Hague. — By Brussels to Paris. — The 
Danish Crown Prince. — To Vincennes with him. — My Birthday 
and the Souvenirs sent me. — Christine Nilsson. — Rossini. — A 
Perilous Journey across a Street. — Frolich. — I receive the Order 
of Notre Dame de Gaudeloupe. — In Bordeaux. — Ristori. — En 
route for Lisbon. — Reception by the O'Neills. — Castilho. — At 
Carlos O'Neill's Villa. — Setubal. — Coimbra. — Return to Lisbon. 

— An Experience at Sea. — In Bordeaux. — To Hamburg. — At 
Odense. — Carl Bloch. — Madame Ingemann. — My Home in 
Copenhagen. — The Seven Days of the Week with my Friends. 514-544 

1867. — Readings of my Stories. — My Birthday. — To Paris for the 
Great Exhibition. — The Danish Representation — Robert Wall. — 
In Le Locle. — At Home. — A Second Visit to Paris to study for 
" The Dryad." — French Editors' Excursion to Copenhagen. — 
Home by Baden Baden. — In Odense. — I am invited by the Town 
to receive an Honorary Citizenship. — The Celebration. — The 
Speeches and Scenes in the Town Hall. — A fulfillment of Prophecy. 

— Lahn's Institution. — Conclusion 544-569 




THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 

MY life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, 
when I was a boy, and went forth into the world poor 
and friendless, a good fairy had met me and said, " Choose 
now thy own course through life, and the object for w r hich 
thou wilt strive, and then, according to the development of 
thy mind, and as reason requires, I will guide and defend thee 
to its attainment," my fate could not, even then, have been di- 
rected more happily, more prudently, or better. The history 
of my life will say to the world what it says to me, — There is 
a loving God, who directs all things for the best. 

In the year 1805' there lived at Odense, in a small mean 
room, a young married couple, who were extremely attached 
to each other ; he was a shoemaker, scarcely twenty-two years 
old, a man of a richly gifted and truly poetical mind. His 
wife, a few years older than himself, was ignorant of life and 
of the world, but possessed a heart full of love. The young 
man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the bed- 
stead with which he began housekeeping ; this bedstead he 
had made out of the wooden frame which had borne only a 
short time before the coffin of the deceased Count Trampe, as 
he lay in state, and the remnants of the black cloth on the 
wood-work kept the fact still in remembrance. 

Instead of a noble corpse, surrounded by crape and wax- 
lights, here lay, on the second of April, 1805, a living and 
weeping child, — that was myself, Hans Christian Andersen. 
During the first day of my existence my father is said to have 
sat by the bed and read aloud in Holberg, but I cried all the 
1 



2 THE STORY CF MY LIFE. 

time. " Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly ? " it is re 
ported that my father asked in joke ; but I still cried on ; and 
even in the church, when I was taken to be baptized, I cried 
so loudly that the preacher, who was a passionate man, said, 
" The young one screams like a cat ! " which words my mother 
never forgot. A poor emigrant, Gomar, who stood as god- 
father, consoled her in the mean time by saying that the 
louder I cried as a child, all the more beautifully should I 
sing when I grew older. 

Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemak- 
er's bench, the bed, and my crib, was the abode of my child- 
hood ; the walls, however, were covered with pictures, and 
over the work-bench was a cupboard containing books and 
songs ; the little kitchen was full of shining plates and metal 
pans, and by means of a ladder it was possible to go out on 
the roof, where, in the gutters between it and the neighbor's 
house, there stood a great chest filled with soil, my mother's 
sole garden, and where she grew her vegetables. In my story 
of the " Snow Queen " that garden still blooms. 

I was the only child, and was extremely spoiled, but I con- 
tinually heard from my mother how very much happier I was 
than she had been, and that I was brought up like a noble- 
man's child. She, as a child, had been driven out by her par- 
ents to beg, and once when she was not able to do it, she had 
sat for a whole day under a bridge and wept. I have drawn 
her character in two different aspects, — in old Dominica, in 
the " Improvisatore," and in the mother of Christian, in " Only 
a Fiddler." 

My father gratified me in all my wishes. I possessed his 
w r hole heart ; he lived for me. On Sundays he made me 
perspective glasses, theatres, and pictures which could be 
changed ; he read to me from Holberg's plays and the " Ara- 
bian Tales ; " it was only in such moments as these that I can 
remember to have seen him really cheerful, for he never felt 
himself happy in his life and as a handicraftsman. His par- 
ents had been country people in good circumstances, but upon 
whom many misfortunes had fallen : the cattle had died ; the 
farm-house had been burned down ; and lastly, the husband 
had lost his reason. On this the wife had removed with him 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 3 

to Odense, and there put her son, whose mind was full of intel- 
ligence, apprentice to a shoemaker ; it could not be otherwise, 
although it was his ardent wish to attend the grammar school, 
where he might learn Latin. A few well-to-do citizens had at 
one time spoken of this, of clubbing together to raise a suffi- 
cient sum to pay for his board and education, and thus giving 
him a start in life ; but it never went beyond words. My 
poor father saw his dearest wish unfulfilled \ and he never 
lost the remembrance of it. I recollect that once, as a child y 
I saw tears in his eyes, and it was when a youth from the 
grammar school came to our house to be measured for a new 
pair of boots, and showed us his books and told us what he 
learned. 

" That was the path upon which I ought to have gone ! " 
said my father, kissed me passionately, and was silent the 
whole evening. 

He very seldom associated with his equals. He went out 
into the woods on Sundays, when he took me with him ; he 
did not talk much when he was out, but would sit silently, 
sunk in deep thought, whilst I ran about and strung straw- 
berries on a bent, or bound garlands. Only twice in the year, 
and that in the month of May, when the woods were arrayed 
in their earliest green, did my mother go with us, and then 
she wore a cotton gown, which she put on only on these oc- 
casions and when she partook of the Lord's Supper, and 
which, as long as I can remember, was her holiday gown. 
She always took home with her from the wood a great many 
fresh beech boughs, which were then planted behind the 
polished stone. Later in the year sprigs of St. John's wort 
were stuck into the chinks of the beams, and we considered 
their growth as omens whether our lives would be long or 
short. Green branches and pictures ornamented our little 
room, which my mother always kept neat and clean ; she took 
great pride in always having the bed linen and the curtains 
very white. 

One of my first recollections, although very slight in itself, 
had for me a good deal of importance, from the power by 
which the fancy of a child impressed it upon my soul ; it was 
a family festival, and can you guess where? In that very 



4 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

place in Odense, in that house which I had always looked on 
with fear and trembling, just as boys in Paris may have looked 
at the Bastile — in the Odense house of correction. 

My parents were acquainted with the jailer, who invited 
them to a family dinner, and I was to go with them. I was at 
that time still so small that I was carried when we returned 
home. 

The House of Correction was for me a great store-house of 
stories about robbers and thieves : often I had stood, but al- 
ways at a safe distance, and listened to the singing of the men 
within and of the women spinning at their wheels. 

I went with my parents to the jailer's ; the heavy iron- 
bolted gate was opened and again locked with the key from 
the rattling bunch ; we mounted a steep staircase — we ate 
and drank, and two of the prisoners waited at the table ; they 
could not induce me to taste of anything, the sweetest things 
I pushed away : my mother told them I was sick, and I was 
laid on a bed, where I heard the spinning-wheels humming 
near by and merry singing, whether in my own fancy or in 
reality, I cannot tell J but I know that I was afraid, and was 
kept on the stretch all the time ; and yet I was in a pleasant 
humor, making up stories of how I had entered a castle full 
of robbers. Late in the night my parents went home, carry- 
ing me, the rain, for it was rough weather, dashing against 
my face. 

Odense was in my childhood quite another town from what 
it is now, when it has shot ahead of Copenhagen, with its water 
carried through the town and I know not what else ! Then it 
was a hundred years behind the times ; many customs and 
manners prevailed which long since disappeared from the 
capital. When the guilds removed their signs, they went in 
procession with flying banners and with lemons dressed in 
ribbons stuck on their swords. A harlequin with bells and a 
wooden sword ran at the head ; one of them, an old fellow, 
Hans Struh, made a great hit by his merry chatter and his 
face, which was painted black, except the nose, that kept its 
genuine red color. My mother was so pleased with him that 
she tried to find out if he was in any way related to us, but I 
remember very well that I, with all the pride of an aristocrat, 
protested against any relationship with the " fool." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 5 

The first Monday in Lent the butchers used to lead through 
the streets a fat ox, adorned with wreaths of flowers and 
ridden by a boy in a white shirt and wearing wings. 

The sailors also passed through the streets with music and 
flags and streamers flying • two of the boldest ended by wrest- 
ling on a plank placed between two boats, and the one that 
did not tumble into the water was the hero. 

But what especially was fixed in my memory, and is very often 
revived by being spoken about, was the stay of the Spaniards 
in Funen in 1808. Denmark w r as in alliance with Napoleon, 
who had declared war against Sweden, and before anybody 
was aware of it, a French army and Spanish auxiliary troops, 
under command of Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Pontecorvo, 
entered Funen in order to pass over into Sweden. I was at 
that time not more than three years old, but I remember very 
well those' dark-brown men bustling in the streets, and the 
cannon that were fired in the market-place and before the 
bishop's residence ; I saw the foreign soldiers stretching them- 
selves on the sidewalks and on bundles of straw in the half- 
burned St. John's Church. The castle of Kolding was burnt, 
and Pontecorvo came to O dense, where his w T ife and his son 
Oscar were staying. The school-houses all about were changed 
into guard-rooms, and the mass was celebrated under the 
large trees in the fields and on the road. The French sol- 
diers were Said to be haughty and arrogant, the Spanish good- 
natured and friendly ; a fierce hatred existed between them ; 
the poor Spaniards excited most interest. 

A Spanish soldier one day took me up in his arms and 
pressed against my lips a silvery image, which he carried on 
his breast. I remember that my mother became angry be- 
cause, as she said, it was something Catholic, but I was 
pleased with the image, and the foreign soldier danced with 
me, kissed me, and shed tears ; he had, perhaps, children him- 
self at home. I saw 7 one of his comrades carried to execution 
for having killed a Frenchman. Many years afterward, in 
remembrance of that, I wrote my little poem, " The Soldier," 
which, translated into German by Chamisso, has become popu- 
lar, and is found in German " Soldier Songs " as an original 
German song. 



6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Quite as lively as the impression of the Spaniards was a 
later event, in my sixth year, namely, the great comet of 1811 • 
my mother told me that it would destroy the earth, or that 
other horrible things threatened us, to be found in the book of 
"the prophecies of Sibylla." I listened to all these supersti- 
tious stories and fully believed them. With my mother and 
some of the neighboring women I stood in St. Canut's church- 
yard and looked at the frightful and mighty fire-ball with its 
large, shining tail. 

All talked about the signs of evil and the day of doom. 
My father joined us, but he was not of the others' opinion at 
all, and gave them a correct and sound explanation ; then my 
mother sighed, the women shook their heads, my father 
laughed and went away. I caught the idea that my father 
was not of our faith, and that threw me into a great fright ! 
In the evening my mother and my old grandmother talked 
together, and I do not know how she explained it ; but I sat 
in her lap, looked into her mild eyes, and expected every mo- 
ment that the comet would rush down, and the day of judg- 
ment come. 

The mother of my father came daily to our house, were it 
only for a moment, in order to see her little grandson. I was 
her joy and her delight. She was a quiet and most amiable 
old woman, with mild blue eyes and a fine figure, which life 
had severely tried. From having been the wife df a country- 
man in easy circumstances she had now fallen into great 
poverty, and dwelt with her feeble-minded husband in a little 
house, which was the last, poor remains of their property. I 
never saw her shed a tear ; but it made all the deeper im- 
pression upon me when she quietly sighed, and told me about 
her own mother's mother, — how she had been a rich, noble 
lady, in the city of Cassel, and that she had married a " com- 
edy-player," — that was as she expressed it, — and run away 
from parents and home, for all of which her posterity had now 
to do penance. I never can recollect that I heard her mention 
the family name of her grandmother; but her own maiden 
name was Nommesen. She was employed to take care of the 
garden belonging to a lunatic asylum, and every Sunday even- 
ing she brought us some flowers, which they gave her permis- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. J 

sion to take home with her. These flowers adorned my 
mother's cupboard ; but still they were mine, and to me it 
was allowed to put them in the glass of water. How great 
was this pleasure ! She brought them all to me \ she loved 
me with her whole soul. I knew it, and I understood it. 

She burned, twice in the year, the green rubbish of the gar- 
den i on such occasions she took me with her to the asylum. 
and I lay upon the great heaps of green leaves and pea-straw 
I had many flowers to play with, and — which was a circum- 
stance upon which I set great importance — I had here better 
food to eat than I could expect at home. 

All such patients as were harmless wore permitted to go 
freely about the court : they often came to us in the garden, 
and with curiosity and terror I listened to them and followed 
them about \ nay, I even ventured so far as to go wife the 
attendants to those who were raving mad. A long passage 
led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants were 
out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through 
the crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a 
lady almost naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung 
down over her shoulders, and she sang with a very beautiful 
voice. All at once she sprang up, and threw herself against 
the door where I lay \ the little valve through which she 
received her food burst open ; she stared down upon me, and 
stretched out her long arm toward me. I screamed for terror 
— I felt the tips of her fingers touching my clothes — I was 
half dead when the attendant came ; and even in later years 
that sight and that feeling remained within my soul. 

Close beside the place where the leaves were burned the 
poor old women had their spinning-room. I often went in 
there, and was very soon a favorite. When with these people, 
I found myself possessed of an eloquence which filled them 
with astonishment. I had accidentally heard about the inter- 
nal mechanism of the human frame, of course without under- 
standing anything about it , but all these mysteries were very 
captivating to me \ and with chalk, therefore, I drew a quan- 
tity of flourishes on the door, which were to represent the 
intestines ; and my description of the heart and the lungs 
made the deepest impression. I passed for a remarkably 



( 
8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

wise child, that would not live long ; and they rewarded my 
eloquence by telling me tales in return \ and thus a world as 
rich as that of the Thousand and One Nights, was revealed to 
me. The stories told by these old ladies, and the insane fig- 
ures which I saw around me in the asylum, operated in. the 
mean time so powerfully upon me, that when it grew dark I 
scarcely dared to go out of the house. I was therefore per- 
mitted, generally at sunset, to lay down in my parents' bed 
with its long, flowered curtains, because the press-bed in which 
I slept could not conveniently be put down so early in the 
evening on account of the room it occupied in our small 
dwelling; and here, in the paternal bed, lay I in a waking 
dream, as if the actual world did not concern me. 

I was very much afraid of my weak-minded grandfather. 
Only once had he ever spoken to me, and then he had made 
use of the formal pronoun, "you." He employed himself in 
cutting out of wood strange figures, — men with beasts' heads 
and beasts with wings ; these he packed in a basket and car- 
ried them out into the country, where he was everywhere well 
received by the peasant women, because he gave to them and 
their children these strange toys. One day, when he was 
returning to Odense, I heard the boys in the street shouting 
after him ; I hid myself behind a flight of steps in terror, for 
I knew that I was of his flesh and blood. 

I very seldom played with other boys ; even at school I took 
little interest in their games, but remained sitting within doors. 
At home I had playthings enough, which my father made for 
me. My greatest delight was in making clothes for my dolls, 
or in stretching out one of my mother's aprons between the 
wall and two sticks before a currant-bush which I had planted 
in the yard, and thus to gaze in between the sun-illumined 
leaves. I was a singularly dreamy child, and so constantly 
went about with my eyes shut, as at last to give the impression 
of having weak sight, although the sense of sight was especially 
cultivated by me. 

An old woman-teacher, who had an ABC school, taught me 
the letters, to spell, and " to read right," as it was called. 
She used to have her seat in a high-backed arm-chair near the 
clock, from which at every full stroke some little automata came 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



9 



out. She made use of a big rod, which she always carried 
with her. The school consisted mostly of girls. It was the 
custom of the school for all to spell loudly and in as high a 
key as possible. The mistress dared not beat me, as my 
mother had made it a condition of my going that I should not 
be touched. One day having got a hit of the rod, I rose 
immediately, took my book, and without further ceremony 
went home to my mother, asked that I might go to another 
school, and that was granted me. My mother sent me to 
Carsten's school for boys \ there was also one girl there, a little 
one somewhat older than I ; we became very good friends ; 
she used to speak of the advantage it was to be to her in going 
into service, and that she went to school especially to learn 
arithemetic, for, as her mother told her, she could then be- 
come dairy-maid in some great manor. 

" That you can become in my castle when I am a noble- 
man ! " said I, and she laughed at me and told me that I was 
only a poor boy. One day I had drawn something which I 
called my castle, and I told her that I was a changed child of 
high birth, and that the angels of God came down and spoke 
to me. I wanted to make her stare as I did with the old 
women in the hospital, but she would not be caught. She 
looked queerly at me, and said to one of the other boys stand- 
ing near, " He is a fool like his grandpapa," and I shivered at 
the words. I had said it to give me an air of importance in 
their eyes, but I failed and only made them think that I was 
insane like my grandfather. 

I never spoke to her again about these things, but we were 
no longer the same playmates as before. I was the smallest 
in the school, and my teacher, Mr. Carsten, always took me 
by the hand while the other boys played, that I might not be 
run over; he loved me much, gave me cakes and flowers, 
and tapped me on the cheeks. One of the older boys did not 
know his lesson and was punished by being placed, book in 
hand, upon the school-table, around which we were seated, but 
seeing me quite inconsolable at this punishment, he pardoned 
the culprit. 

The poor old teacher became, later in life telegraph-director 
at Thorseng, where he still lived until a few years since. It is 



IO THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

said that the old man, when showing the visitors around, told 
them with a pleasant smile : " Well, well, you will perhaps not 
believe that such a poor old man as I was the first teacher of * 
one of our most renowned poets ! H. C Andersen was one 
of my scholars ! " 

Sometimes, during the harvest, my mother went into the 
field to glean. I accompanied her, and we went, like Ruth in 
the Bible, to glean in the rich fields of Boaz. One day we 
went to a place the bailiff of which was well known for being 
a man of a rude and savage disposition. We saw him coming 
with a huge whip in his hand, and my mother and all the others 
ran away. I had wooden shoes on my bare feet, and in my 
haste I lost these, and then the thorns pricked me so that I 
could not run, and thus I was left behind and alone. The 
man came up and lifted his whip to strike me, when I looked 
him in the face and involuntarily exclaimed, — How dare you 
strike me, when God can see it ? " 

The strong, stern man looked at me, and at once became 
mild ; he patted me on my cheeks, asked me my name, and 
gave me money. " 

When I brought this to my mother and showe^d it her, she 
said to the others, " He is a strange child, my Hans Christian ; 
everybody is kind to him : this bad fellow even has given him 
money." 

I grew up pious and superstitious ; I had not the least idea 
of what it was to be in want ; my father lived, as the saying 
is, from hand to mouth, but what we had was more than 
enough for me. As to my dress I was rather spruce ; an old 
woman altered my father's clothes for me ; my mother would 
fasten three or four large pieces of silk with pins on my 
breast, and that had to do for vests ; a large kerchief was 
tied round my neck with a mighty bow ; my head was washed 
with soap and my hair curled, and then I was in all my glory. 

In that attire I went with my parents for the first time to 
the theatre. Odense at that time had already a substantial 
play-house built, I believe, for the company of Count Trampe 
or that of Count Hahn ; the first representations I saw were 
given in the German language. Mr. Franck was the director ; 
he gave operas and comedies. " Das Donauweibchen " was the 



THE STOR Y OF MY LIFE. \ \ 

favorite piece ; the first representation, however, that I saw 
was Holberg's " Village Politicians." 

The first impressions which a theatre and the crowd 
assembled there made upon me was, at all events, no sign of 
anything poetical slumbering in me ; for my first exclamation 
on seeing so many people was, " Now, if we only had as 
many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would 
eat lots of butter ! " The theatre, however, soon became my 
favorite place, but, as I could only very seldom go there, I 
acquired the friendship of the man who carried out the play- 
bills, and he gave me one every day. With this I seated my- 
self in a corner and imagined an entire play, according to the 
name of the piece and the characters in it. That was my 
first, unconscious poetizing. 

My father's favorite reading was plays and stories, although 
he also read works of history and the Scriptures. He pondered 
in silent thought afterward upon that which he had read ; 
but my mother did not understand him when he talked with 
her about it, and therefore he grew more and more silent. 
One day he closed the Bible with the words, " Christ was a 
man like us, but an extraordinary man ! " These words horri- 
fied my mother and she burst into tears. In my distress I 
prayed to God that he would forgive this fearful blasphemy in 
my- father. " There is no other devil than that which we have 
in our own hearts," I heard my father say one day, and I 
made myself miserable about him and his soul ; I was there- 
fore entirely of the opinion of my mother and the neighbors, 
when my father, one morning, found three scratches on his 
arm, probably occasioned by a nail, that the devil had been 
to visit him in the night, in order to prove to him that he 
really existed. 

My father had not many friends ; in his leisure hours he 
used to take me with him out into the woods. He had a great 
desire for country life, and it happened just at this time that a 
shoemaker was required at a manor house who would set up 
his bench in the neighboring village, and there have a house 
free of rent, a little garden, and pasture for a cow ; by perma- 
nent work from the manor and these additional helps one 
could manage nicely. My mother and father were very eager 



12 THE 'STORY OF MY LIFE. 

to have the place, and my father got a trial job to sew a pair 
of dancing-shoes ; a piece of silk was sent him, the leather he 
was to furnish himself. All our talk for a couple of days 
turned upon these shoes ; I longed so much for the little 
garden where we could have flowers and shrubs, and I would 
sit in the sunshine and listen to the cuckoo. I prayed very 
fervently to God that he would grant us our wishes, and I 
thought that no greater happiness could be bestowed upon us. 
The shoes were at last finished ; we looked on them with a 
solemn feeling, for they were to decide our future. My father 
wrapped them in his handkerchief and went off, and we waited 
for him with faces beaming with joy. He came home pale 
and angry ; the gracious lady, he said, had not even tried the 
shoes on, — only looked at them sourly, and said that the silk 
was spoiled and that he could not get the place. " If you 
have spoiled your silk," said my father, " I can be reconciled 
to spoiling my leather too," so he took a knife and cut off the 
soles. 

There was no more hope of our getting into the country. 
We mingled our tears together, and I thought that God could 
easily have granted our wish. If he had done so, I had no 
doubt been a peasant all my life ; my whole future would have 
been different from what it has been. I have often since 
thought and said to myself: Do you think that our Lord for 
your sake and for your future has let your parents lose their 
days of happiness ? 

My father's rambles in the wood became more frequent ; he 
had no rest. The events of the war in Germany, which he 
read in the newspapers with eager curiosity, occupied him 
completely. Napoleon was his hero : his rise from obscurity 
was the most beautiful example to him. At that time Den- 
mark was in league with France ; nothing was talked of but 
war ; my father entered the service as a soldier, in hope of 
returning home a lieutenant. My mother wept, the neighbors 
shrugged their shoulders, and said that it was folly to go out 
to be shot when there was no occasion for it. 

The morning on which the corps were to march I heard my 
father singing and talking merrily, but his heart was deeply 
agitated ; I observed that by the passionate manner in which 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. J 3 

he kissed me when he took his leave. I lay sick of the measles 
and alone in the room, when the drums beat, and my mother 
accompanied my father, weeping, to the city gate. As soon 
as they were gone my old grandmother came in ; she looked 
at me with her mild eyes and said it w r ould be a good thing 
if I died ; but that God's will was always the best. 

That was the first day of real sorrow which I remember. 

The regiment advanced no further than Holstein ; peace was 
concluded, and the voluntary soldier returned to his work-stool. 
Everything fell into its old course. I played again with my 
dolls, acted comedies, always in German, because I had 
only seen them in this language ; but my German was a sort 
of gibberish which I made up, and in which there occurred 
only one real German word, and that was " Besen" a word 
which I had picked up out of the various dialects which my 
father brought home from Holstein. 

" Thou hast indeed some benefit from my travels," said he 
in joke. " God knows whether thou wilt get as far ; but that 
must be thy care. Think about it, Hans Christian ! " But it 
w r as my mother's intention that, as long as she had any voice 
in the matter, I should remain at home, and not lose my 
health as he had done. 

That was the case with him : his health had suffered. One 
morning he woke in a state of the wildest excitement, and 
talked only of campaigns and Napoleon. He fancied that he 
had received orders from him to take the command. My 
mother immediately sent me, not to the physician but to a so- 
called wise woman some miles from Odense. I went to her. 
She questioned me, measured my arm with a woolen thread, 
made extraordinary signs, and at last laid a green twig upon 
my breast. It was, she said, a piece of the same kind of tree 
upon which the Saviour was crucified. 

" Go now," said she, " by the river side toward home. If 
your father is to die this time, then you will meet his ghost." 

My anxiety and distress may be imagined, — I, who was 
so full of superstition, and whose imagination was so easily 
excited. 

" And thou hast not met anything, hast thou ? " inquired 
my mother when I got home. I assured her, with beating 
heart, that I had not. 



14 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

My father died the third day after that. His corpse lay on 
the bed ; I therefore slept with my mother. A cricket chirped 
the whole night through. 

" He is dead," said my mother, addressing it ; " thou needest 
not call him. The ice maiden has fetched him." 

I understood what she meant. I recollected that, in the 
winter before, when our window-panes were frozen, my father 
pointed to them and showed us a figure like that of a maiden 
with outstretched arms. " She is come to fetch me," said he, 
in jest. And now, when he lay dead on the bed, my mother 
remembered this, and it occupied my thoughts also. 

He was buried in St. Knud's church-yard, by the door on 
the left-hand side coming from the altar. My grandmother 
planted roses upon his grave. There are now in the self-same 
place two strangers' graves, and the grass grows green upon 
them also. 

After my father's death I was entirely left to myself. My 
mother went out washing. I sat alone at home with my little 
theatre, made dolls' clothes, and read plays. It has been told 
me* that I was always clean and nicely dressed. I had grown 
tall ; my hair was long, bright, and almost yellow, and I always 
went bareheaded. There dwelt in our neighborhood the 
widow of a clergyman, Madame Bunkeflod, with the sister of 
her deceased husband. This lady opened to me her door, and 
hers was the first house belonging to the educated class into 
which I was kindly received. The deceased clergyman had 
written poems, and had gained a reputation in Danish litera- 
ture. His spinning songs were at that time in the mouths of 
the people. In my vignettes to the Danish poets I thus sang 
of him whom my contemporaries had forgotten, — 

Spindles rattle, wheels turn round, 

Spinning songs depart ; 
Songs which youth sings soon become 

Music of the heart. 

Here it was that I heard for the first time the word poet 
spoken, and that with so much reverence, as proved it to be 
something sacred. It is true that my father had read Hol- 
berg's plays to me ; but here it was not of these that they 
spoke, but of verses and poetry. "My brother the poet," said 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



15 



Bunkeflod's sister, and her eyes sparkled as she said it. 
From her I learned that it was a something glorious, a some- 
thing fortunate, to be a poet. Here, too, for the first time, I 
read Shakespeare. — in a bad translation, to be sure ; but the 
bold descriptions, the heroic incidents, witches, and ghosts 
were exactly to my taste. I immediately acted Shakespeare's 
plays on my little puppet theatre. I saw Hamlet's ghost, 
and lived upon the heath with Lear. The more persons died 
in a play, the more interesting I thought it. At this time I 
wrote my first piece : it was nothing less than a tragedy, 
wherein, as a matter of course, ever}' body died. The subject 
of it I borrowed from an old song about Pyramus and Thisbe ; 
but I had increased the incidents through a hermit and his 
son, who both loved Thisbe, and who both killed themselves 
when she died. Many speeches of the hermit were passages 
from the Bible, taken out of the Little Catechism, especially 
from our duty to our neighbors. To the piece I gave the title 
" Abor and Elvira." 

" It ought to be called ' Perch (Aborre) and Stockfish/ " 
said one of our neighbors wittily to me as I came with it to 
her after having read it with great satisfaction and joy to all 
the people in our street. This entirely depressed me, because 
I felt that she was turning both me and my poem into ridicule. 
With a troubled heart, I told it to my mother. 

" She only said so," replied my mother, " because her son 
had not done it." I was comforted, and began a new piece, 
in which a king and queen were among the dramatis fiersonce. 
I thought it was not quite right that these dignified person- 
ages, as in Shakespeare, should speak like other men and 
women. I asked my mother and different people how a king 
ought properly to speak, but no one knew exactly. They 
said that it was so many years since a king had been in 
Odense, but that he certainly spoke in a foreign language. I 
procured myself, therefore, a sort of lexicon, in which were 
German, French, and English words with Danish meanings, 
and this helped me. I took a word out of each language, and 
inserted them into the speeches of my king and queen. It 
was a regular Babel-like language, which I considered only 
suitable for such elevated personages. 



1 6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I desired now that everybody should hear my piece. It 
was a real felicity to me to read it aloud, and it never occurred 
to me that others should not have the same pleasure in listen- 
ing to it. 

The son of one of our neighbors worked in a cloth manufac- 
tory, and every week brought home a sum of money. I was at 
loose ends, people said, and got nothing. I was also now to 
go to the manufactory, " not for the sake of the money," my 
mother said., "but that she might know where I was, and 
what I was doing." 

My old grandmother took me to the place, therefore, and 
was very much affected, because, said she, she had not ex- 
pected to live to see the time when I should consort with the 
poor ragged lads that worked there. 

Many of the journeymen who were employed in the manu- 
factory were Germans ; they sang and were merry fellows, and 
many a coarse joke of theirs filled the place with loud laugh- 
ter. I heard them, and I there learned that, to the innocent 
ears of a child, the impure remains very unintelligible. It 
took no hold upon my heart. I was possessed at that time 
of a remarkably beautiful and high soprano voice, and I knew 
it ; because when I sang in my parents' little garden, the 
people in the street stood and listened, and the fine folks in 
the garden of the states-councilor, which adjoined ours, lis- 
tened at the fence. When, therefore, the people at the manu- 
factory asked me whether I could sing, I immediately began, 
and all the looms stood still : all the journeymen listened to 
me. I had to sing again and again, whilst the other boys had 
my work given them to do. I now told them that I also 
could act plays, and that I knew whole scenes of Holberg 
and Shakespeare. Everybody liked me ; and in this way. the 
first days in the manufactory passed on very merrily. One 
day, however, when I was in my best singing vein, and every- 
body spoke of the extraordinary brilliancy of my voice, one of 
the journeymen said that I was a girl, and not a boy. He 
seized hold of me. I cried and screamed. The other jour- 
neymen thought it very amusing, and held me fast by my arms 
and legs. I screamed aloud, and was as much ashamed as a 
girl ; and then, darting from them, rushed home to my mother, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 7 

who immediately promised me that I should never go there 
again. 

I again visited Madame Bunkeflod, for whose birthday I 
invented and made a white silk pincushion. I also made an 
acquaintance with another old clergyman's widow in the 
neighborhood. She permitted me to read aloud to her the 
works which she had from the circulating library. One of 
them began with these words : " It was a tempestuous night ; 
the rain beat against the window-panes." 

" That is an extraordinary book," said the old lady ; and I 
quite innocently asked her how she knew that it was. "I 
can tell from the beginning/' said she, " that it will turn out 
extraordinary." 

I regarded her penetration with a sort of reverence. 

Once in the harvest time my mother took me with her 
many miles from O dense to a nobleman's seat in the neigh- 
borhood of Bogense, her native place. The lady who lived 
there, and with whose parents my mother had lived, had said 
that some time she might come and see her. That was a 
great journey for me : we went most of the way on foot, and 
required, I believe, two days for the journey. The country 
here made such a strong impression upon me, that my most 
earnest wish was to remain in it, and become a countryman. 
It was just in the hop-picking season ; my mother and I sat 
in the barn with a great many country people round a great 
bin, and helped to pick the hops. They told tales as they 
sat at their work, and every one related what wonderful things 
he had seen or experienced. One afternoon I heard an old 
man among them say that God knew everything, both what 
had happened and what would happen. That idea occupied 
my whole mind, and toward evening, as I went alone from 
the court, where there was a deep pond, and stood upon some 
stones which were just within the water, the thought passed 
through my head, whether God actually knew everything 
which was to happen there. Yes, he has now determined that 
I should live and be so many years old, thought I ; but, if I 
now were to jump into the water here and drown myself, then 
it would not be as he wished ; and all at once I was firmly 
and resolutely determined to drown myself. I ran to where 



1 8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

the water was deepest, and then a new thought passed through 
my soul. "It is the devil who wishes to have power over 
me!" I uttered a loud cry, and, running away from the place 
as if I were pursued, fell weeping into my mother's arms. 
But neither she nor any one else could wring from me what 
was amiss with me. 

" He has certainly seen a ghost," said one of the women, 
and I almost believed so myself. 

My mother married a second time, a young handicraftsman ; 
but his family, who also belonged to the handicraft class, 
thought that he had married below himself, and neither my 
mother nor myself were permitted to visit them. My step- 
father was a young, grave man, who would have nothing to do 
with my education. I spent my time, therefore, over my peep- 
show and my puppet theatre, and my greatest happiness con- 
sisted in collecting bright colored pieces of cloth and silk, 
which I cut out myself, and sewed. My mother regarded it 
as good exercise preparatory to my becoming a tailor, and 
took up the idea that I certainly was born for it. I, on the 
contrary, said that I would go to the theatre and be an actor, 
a wish which my mother most sedulously opposed, because she 
knew of no other theatre than those of the strolling players 
and the rope-dancers. " Be sure, you will then get good whip- 
pings," said she ; " they will starve you to death to make you 
supple, and they will give you oil to eat to make your limbs 
soft ! " No, a tailor I must and should be. " You see how well 
Mr. Dickmann, the tailor, is getting on ! " Mr. Dickmann, was 
the first tailor in the town. " He lives in Cross Street, has 
large windows and journeymen on the table \ yes, if you could 
only be such a one ! " The only thing which in some meas- 
ure reconciled me to this prospect was, that I should then get 
so many fragments to make up for my theatre. 

My parents moved to a street out of the Monk-Mill's gate, 
and there we had a garden ; it was a very little and narrow 
one, containing only one long garden-bed with currant and 
gooseberry bushes, and the path that led down to the river 
behind the monk-mill. Three great water-wheels were turn- 
ing round from the falling water, and stopped when the water- 
gates were closed ; then all the water ran out from the river, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



19 



the bed dried up, the fishes plashed and jumped in its hol- 
lows so that I could catch them with my hands, and under the 
great water-wheels fat water-rats came forth to drink • sud- 
denly the water-gates were opened and the water rushed roar- 
ing and foaming down : no rats w T ere now to be seen, the river- 
bed was again filled, and I ran plashing through the water, as 
frightened as the amber-gatherers on the coasts of the western 
sea, when they happen to be far out and the flood sets in. I 
stood upon one of the big stones my mother used for wash- 
board and sang with all my might the songs I knew, and some- 
times there w T as neither meaning nor melody in them, but still 
I sang my own self-made tunes as well as I could. The 
neighboring garden belonged to Mr. Falbe, whose wife 
Oehlenschlager mentions in his autobiography \ she had for- 
merly been actress, and was beautiful as Ida Munster in the 
drama " Herman von Unna \ " she was then Miss Beck. 

When they had company in the garden they were always 
listening to my singing, and I knew it. All 1 told me that I 
had a beautiful voice, which would bring me luck in the 
world. I often meditated how this luck should come, and as 
the wonderful has always been truth for me, so I expected the 
most marvelous things would happen. 

An old woman who rinsed clothes in the river, told me that 
the Empire of China was situated straight under the very river 
of Odense, and I did not find it impossible at all that a Chi- 
nese prince, some moonlight night when I was sitting there, 
might dig himself through the earth up to us, hear me sing, 
and so take me down with him to his kingdom, make me rich 
and noble, and then let me again visit Odense, where I would 
live and build me a castle. Many evenings I w r as occupied 
with tracing and making ground-plans for it. 

I was quite a child, and long afterwards when declaiming 
and reading my poems in Copenhagen, I still expected and 
hoped for such a prince among my auditors, who would hear 
me, understand me, and help me. 

My passion for reading, the many dramatic scenes which I 
knew by heart, and my remarkably fine voice, had turned 
upon me in some sort the attention of several of the more in- 
fluential families of Odense. I was sent for to their houses, 



20 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

and the peculiar characteristics of. my mind excited their in- 
terest. Among others who noticed me was the Colonel 
Hoegh-Guldberg, who with his family showed me the kindest 
sympathy ; so much so, indeed, that he introduced me to Prince 
Christian, afterward King Christian the Eighth. 

" If the prince should ask you what you have a liking for," 
said he, " answer him that your highest desire is to enter the 
grammar school." So I said this to the prince when he 
really asked me this question, and he answered me, that 
my singing and declamation of poetry was really good and 
beautiful, but for all that was no mark of genius, and that I 
must keep in mind that studying was a long and expensive 
course ! in the mean time he would take care of me if I would 
learn a handy trade, for instance that of a turner. I had no 
inclination at all for it, and I went away very much disap- 
pointed, although this noble prince had spoken very naturally 
and was quite in the right. Since that, when my abilities were 
more clearly shown, he was, as we shall see, very kind and 
good toward me until his death, and he is held in my memory 
with the most tender feelings. 

I grew rapidly, and was a tall lad, of whom my mother said 
that she could not let him any longer go about without any 
object in life. I was sent, therefore, to the charity school, 
but learned only religion, writing, and arithmetic, and the last 
badly enough ; I could also scarcely spell a word correctly. 
I never studied my lessons at home ; I used to learn them on 
the way to school and my mother boasting of my good memory 
at the expense of our neighbor's son, said, " He reads till it 
hums, but Hans Christian does not need to open his book and 
yet he knows his lesson." On the master's birthday I always 
wove him a garland and wrote him a poem ; he received them 
half with smiles and half as a joke : the last time, however, he 
scolded me. His name was Velhaven and he was from Nor- 
way ; he was no doubt a good man, but was of a violent nature, 
and seemed to be very unhappy. He spoke in earnest about 
religion, and when he went through our lessons in Biblical 
history he did it in such a vivid fashion that, listening to him, 
all the painted pictures on the wall-hangings representing 
scenes from the Old Testament, became full of life and had 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 21 

for me the same beauty, truth, and freshness that I afterwards 
found in the magnificent pictures of Raphael and Titian. 
Often I sat dreaming and gazing on the variegated wall, and 
he gave me a little reprimand because I was absent-minded. 
I told the boys curious stories in which I was always the 
chief person, but was sometimes rallied for that. The street 
lads had also heard from their parents of my peculiar turn of 
mind, and that I was in the habit of going to the houses of 
the gentry. I was therefore one day pursued by a wild crowd 
of them, who shouted after me derisively, " There runs the 
play- writer ! " I hid myself at home in a corner, wept, and 
prayed to God. 

My mother said that I must be confirmed, in order that I 
might be apprenticed to the tailor trade, and thus do something 
rational. She loved me with her whole heart, but she did not 
understand my impulses and my endeavors, nor indeed at 
that time did I myself. The people about her always spoke 
against my odd ways, and turned me to ridicule. 

We belonged to the parish of St. Knud, and the candidates 
for Confirmation could either enter their names with the provost 
or the chaplain. The children of the so-called superior 
families and the scholars of the grammar school went to the 
first, and the children of the poor to the second. I, however, 
announced myself as a candidate to the provost, who was 
obliged to receive me, although he discovered vanity in 
my placing myself among his catechists, where, although 
taking the lowest place, I was still above those who were under 
the care of the chaplain. I would, however, hope that it was 
not alone vanity which impelled me. I had a sort of fear of 
the poor boys, who had laughed at me, and I always felt, as it 
were, an inward drawing towards the scholars of the grammar 
school, whom I regarded as far better than other boys. .When 
I saw them playing in the church-yard, I would stand outside 
the railings, and wish that I w r ere but among the fortunate 
ones — not for the sake of play, but for the sake of the many 
books they had, and for what they might be able to become 
in the world. At the provost's, therefore, I should be able 
to associate with them, and be as they were ; but I do not 
remember a single one of them now, so little intercourse 



22 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

would they hold with me. I had daily the feeling of having 
thrust myself in where people thought that I did not belong. 
One young girl, however, there was, and one who was consid- 
ered, too, of the highest rank, whom I shall afterwards have 
occasion to mention ; sher always looked gently and kindly at 
me, and even once gave me a rose. I returned home full of 
happiness, because there was one being who did not overlook 
and repel me. 

An old female tailor altered my deceased father's great 
coat into, a confirmation suit for me ; never before had I 
worn so good a coat. I had also, for the first time in my life, a 
pair of boots. My delight was extremely great ; my only 
fear was that everybody would not see them, and therefore 
I drew them up over my trousers, and thus marched through 
the church. The boots creaked, and that inwardly pleased 
me, for thus the congregation would hear that they were new. 
My whole devotion was disturbed ; I was aware of it, and it 
caused me a horrible pang of conscience that my thoughts 
should be as much with my new boots as with God. I prayed 
him earnestly from my heart to forgive me, and then again I 
thought about my new boots. 

During the last year I had saved together a little sum of 
money. When I counted it over I found it to be thirteen rix 
dollars banco (about thirty shillings). I was quite overjoyed 
at the possession of so much wealth, and as my mother now 
most resolutely required that I should be apprenticed to a 
tailor, I prayed and besought her that I might make a journey 
to Copenhagen, that I might see the greatest city in the world. 

" What wilt thou do there ? " asked my mother. 

" I will be famous," returned I ; and I then told her all that 
I had read about extraordinary men. "People have," said I, 
" at first an immense deal of adversity to go through, and 
then they will be famous." 

It was a wholly unintelligible impulse that guided me. I 
wept, I prayed, and at last my mother consented, after having 
first sent for a so-called wise woman out of the hospital, that she 
might read my future fortune by the coffee-grounds and cards. 

" Your son will become a great man," said the old woman, 
" and in honor of him Odense will one day be illuminated." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



23 



My mother wept when she heard that, and I obtained per- 
mission to travel. All the neighbors told my mother that it 
was a dreadful thing to let me, at only fourteen years of age, 
go to Copenhagen, which was such a long way off, and such a 
great and intricate city, and where I knew nobody. 

" Yes," replied my mother, " but he lets me have no peace ; 
I have therefore given my consent, but I am sure that he will 
go no further than Nyborg : when he gets sight of the rough 
sea, he will be frightened and turn back again." 

During the summer before my Confirmation, a part of the 
singers and performers of the Theatre Royal had been in 
Odense, and had given a series of operas and tragedies there. 
The whole city was taken with them. I, who was on good 
terms with the man who delivered the play-bills, saw the 
performances behind the scenes, and had even acted a part 
as page, shepherd, etc., and had spoken a few words. My 
zeal was so great on such occasions, that I stood there 
fully appareled when the actors arrived to dress. By these 
means their attention was turned to me ; my childlike man- 
ners and my enthusiasm amused them ; they talked kindly 
with me, and I looked up to them as to earthly divinities. 
Everything which I had formerly heard about my musical 
voice, and my recitation of poetry, became intelligible to me. 
It was the theatre for which I was born ; it was there that I 
should become a famous man, and for that reason Copenhagen 
was the goal of my endeavors. I heard a deal said about the 
large theatre in Copenhagen, and that there was to be seen 
what was called the ballet, a something which surpassed both 
the opera and the play: more especially did I hear the 
danseuse, Madame Schall, spoken of as the first of all. She 
therefore appeared to me as the queen of everything, and in 
my imagination I regarded her as the one who would be able 
to do everything for me, if I could only obtain her support. 
Filled with these thoughts, I went to the old printer Iversen, 
one of the most respectable citizens of Odense, and who, as 
I heard, had had considerable intercourse with the actors 
when they were in the town. He, I thought, must of necessity 
be acquainted with the famous dancer ; him I would request 
to give me a letter of introduction to her, and then I would 
commit the rest to God. 



24 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

The old man saw me for the first time, and heard my peti- 
tion with much kindness ; but he dissuaded me most earnestly 
from it, and said that I might learn a trade. 

" That would actually be a great sin," returned I. 

He was startled at the manner in which I said that, and it 
prepossessed him in my favor ; he confessed that he was not 
personally acquainted with the dancer, but still that he would 
give me a letter to her. I received one from him, and now 
believed the goal to be nearly won. 

My mother packed up my clothes in a small bundle, and 
made a bargain with the driver of a post carriage to take me 
back with him to Copenhagen for three rix dollars banco. 
The afternoon on which we were to set out came, and my 
mother accompanied me to the city gate. Here stood my 
old grandmother ; in the last few years her beautiful hair had 
become -gray ; she fell upon my neck and wept, without being 
able to speak a word. I was myself deeply affected. And 
thus we parted. I saw her no more ; she died in the follow- 
ing year. I do not even know her grave ; she sleeps in the 
poor-house burial-ground. 

The postilion blew his horn ; it was a glorious sunny after- 
noon, and the sunshine soon entered into my gay, child-like 
mind. I delighted in every novel object which met my eye, 
and I was journeying toward the goal of my souPs desires. 
When, however, I arrived at Nyborg on the great Belt, and 
was borne in the ship away from my native island, I then 
truly felt how alone and forlorn I was, and that I had no one 
else except God in heaven to depend upon. 

As soon as I set foot on Zealand, I stepped behind a shed 
which stood on the shore, and falling upon my knees, besought 
of God to help and guide me aright ; I felt myself comforted 
by so doing, and I firmly trusted in God and my own good 
fortune. The whole day and the following night I travelled 
through cities and villages ; I stood solitarily by the carriage, 
and ate my bread while it was repacked. I thought I was 
far away in the wide world. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON Monday morning, September 5th, 18 19, I saw from 
the heights of Fredericksberg, Copenhagen for the first 
time. At this place I alighted from the carriage, and with my 
little bundle in my hand, entered the city through the castle 
garden, the long alley, and the suburb. 

The evening before my arrival had been made memorable 
by the breaking out of the so-called Jews' quarrel, which 
spread through many European countries. The whole city 
was in commotion everybody was in the streets ; the noise 
and tumult of Copenhagen far exceeded, therefore, any idea 
which my imagination had formed of this, at that time, to me 
great city. 

With scarcely ten dollars in my pocket, I turned into a 
small public-house. My first ramble was to the theatre. I 
went round it many times : I looked up to its walls, and re- 
garded them almost as a home. One of the bill-sellers, who 
wandered about here each day, observed me, and asked me if 
I would have a bill. I was so wholly ignorant of the world, 
that I thought the man wished to give me one ; I therefore 
accepted his offer with thankfulness. He fancied I was mak- 
ing fun of him, and was angry ; so that I was frightened, and 
hastened from the place which was to me the dearest in the 
city. Little did I then imagine that ten years afterward my 
first dramatic piece would be represented there, and that in 
this manner I should make my appearance before the Danish 
public. 

On the following day I dressed myself in my confirmation 
suit, nor were the boots forgotten, although, this time, they 
were worn naturally, under my trousers ; and thus in my best 
attire, with a hat on, which fell half over my eyes, I hastened 
to present my letter of introduction to the dancer, Madame 
Schall. Before I rung at the bell, I fell on my knees before 



26 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

the door and prayed God that I here might find help and 
support. A maid-servant came down the steps with her bas- 
ket in her hand ; she smiled kindly at me, gave me a skilling 
(Danish), and tripped on. Astonished, I looked at her and 
the money. I had on my confirmation suit, and thought I 
must look very smart. How then could she think that I 
wanted to beg ? I called after her. 

" Keep it, keep it ! " said she to me, in return, and was 
gone. 

At length I was admitted to the dancer ; she looked at me 
in great amazement, and then heard what I had to say. She 
had not the slightest knowledge of him from whom the letter 
came, and my whole appearance and behavior seemed very 
strange to her. I confessed to her my heartfelt inclination 
for the theatre ; and upon her asking me what characters I 
thought I could represent, I replied, Cinderella. This piece 
had been performed in Odense by the royal company, and 
the principal characters had so greatly taken my fancy, that I 
could play the part perfectly from memory. In the mean time 
I asked her permission to take off my boots, otherwise I was 
not light enough for this character ; and then taking up my 
broad hat for a tambourine, I began to dance and sing, — 
" Here below, nor rank nor riches 
Are exempt from pain and woe." 

My strange gestures and my great activity caused the lady 
to think me out of my mind, and she lost no time in getting 
rid of me. 

From her I went to the manager of the theatre, to ask for 
an engagement. He looked at me, and said that I was " too 
thin for the theatre." 

" O." replied I, " if you will only engage me with one hun- 
dred rix-dollars banco salary, then I shall soon get fat ! " 
The manager bade me gravely go my way, adding, that they 
only engaged people of education. 

I stood there deeply wounded. I knew no one in all 
Copenhagen who could give me either counsel or consolation. 
I thought of death as being the only thing, and the best thing 
for me ; but even then my thoughts rose upward to God, and 
with all the undoubting confidence of a child in his father, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



2 7 



they riveted themselves upon Him. I wept bitterly, and then 
I said to myself, " When everything happens quite miserably, 
then He sends help. I have always read so. People must 
first of all suffer a great deal before they can bring anything 
to accomplishment." 

I now went and bought myself a gallery ticket for the opera 
of " Paul and Virginia." The separation of the lovers affected 
me to such a degree, that I burst into violent weeping. A few 
women, who sat near me, consoled me by saying that it was 
only a play, and nothing to trouble one's self about ; and then 
they gave me a sausage sandwich. I had the greatest confi- 
dence in everybody, and therefore I told them, with the ut- 
most openness, that I did not really weep about Paul and 
Virginia, but because I regarded the theatre as my Virginia, 
and that if I must be separated from it, I should be just as 
wretched as Paul. They looked at me, and seemed not to 
understand my meaning. I then told them why I had come 
to Copenhagen, and how forlorn I was there. One of the 
women, therefore, gave me more bread and butter, with fruit 
and cakes. 

On the following morning I paid my bill, and to my infinite 
trouble I saw that my whole wealth consisted in one rix-dollar 
banco. It was necessary, therefore, either that I should find 
some vessel to take me home, or put myself to work with 
some handicraftsman. I considered that the last was the 
wiser of the two, because if I returned to Odense, I must 
there also put myself to work of a similar kind ; besides 
which, I knew very well that the people there would laugh at 
me if I came back again. It was to me a matter of indiffer- 
ence what handicraft: trade I learned, — I only should make 
use of it to keep life within me in Copenhagen. I bought a 
newspaper, therefore, and found among the advertisements 
that a cabinet-maker was in want of an apprentice. The man 
received me kindly, but said that before I was bound to him 
he must have an attestation, and my baptismal register from 
Odense \ and that till these came I could remove to his house, 
and try how the business pleased me. At six o'clock the 
next morning I went to the workshop : several journeymen 
were there, and two or three apprentices ; but the master was 



28 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

not come. They fell into merry and idle discourse. I was as 
bashful as a girl, and as they soon perceived this, I was un- 
mercifully rallied upon it. Later in the day the rude jests of 
the young fellows went so far, that, in remembrance of the 
scene at the manufactory, I took the resolute determination 
not to remain a single day longer in the workshop. I went 
down to the master, therefore, and told him that I could not 
stand it ; he tried to console me, but in vain : I was too much 
affected, and hastened away. 

I now went through the streets ; nobody knew me ; I was 
quite forlorn. I then bethought myself of having read in a 
newspaper in Odense the name of an Italian, Siboni, who was 
the director of the Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Every- 
body had praised my voice ; perhaps he would assist me for 
its sake ; if not, then that very evening I must seek out the 
master of some vessel who would take me home again. At 
the thoughts of the journey home I became still more vio- 
lently excited, and in this state of suffering I hastened to Si- 
boni's house. 

It happened that very day that he had a large party to din- 
ner ; our celebrated composer Weyse was there, the poet Bag- 
gesen, and other guests. The housekeeper opened the door to 
me, and to her I not only related my wish to be engaged as a 
singer, but also the whole history of my life. She listened to 
m.e with the greatest sympathy and then she left me. I waited 
a long time, and she must have been repeating to the com- 
pany the greater part of what I had said, for, in a while, the 
door opened, and all the guests came out and looked at me. 
They would have me to sing, and Siboni heard me attentively. 
I gave some scenes out of Holberg, and repeated a few 
poems ; and then, all at once, the sense of my unhappy con- 
dition so overcame me that I burst into tears ; the whole com- 
pany applauded. 

" I prophesy," said Baggesen, " that one day something 
will come out of him ; but do not be vain when, some day, 
the whole public shall applaud thee ! " and then he added 
something about pure, true nature, and that this is too often 
destroyed by years and by intercourse with mankind. I did 
not understand it all. I believed implicitly every man's word 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 29 

and that all wished me well ; I did not keep a thought to my- 
self, but always spoke it right out. 

Siboni promised to cultivate my voice, and that I therefore 
should succeed as singer at the Theatre Royal. It made me 
very happy \ I laughed and wept \ and as the housekeeper 
led me out and saw the excitement under which I labored, she 
stroked my cheeks, and said that on the following day I 
should go to Professor Weyse, who meant to do something 
for me, and upon whom I could depend. 

I went to Weyse, who himself had risen from poverty ; he 
had deeply felt and fully comprehended my unhappy situa- 
tion, and had raised by a subscription seventy rix-dollars 
banco for me. I then wrote my first letter to my mother, a 
letter full of rejoicing, for the good fortune of the whole world 
seemed poured upon me. My mother in her joy showed my 
letter to all her friends ; many heard of it with astonishment ; 
others laughed at it, for what was to be the end of it ? In 
order to understand Siboni it was necessary for me to learn 
something of German. A woman of Copenhagen, with whom I 
travelled from Odense to this city, and who gladly would have 
supported me, had her means permitted, obtained, through 
one of her acquaintance, a language-master, who gratuitously 
gave me some German lessons, and thus I learned a few 
phrases in that language. Siboni received me into his house, 
and gave me food and instruction. He had an Italian cook 
and two smart servant-girls ; one of them had been in Mr. 
Casorti's sendee and spoke Italian ; I spent the day with 
them, willingly ran their errands and listened to their stories ; 
but one day having been sent by them to the dinner-table 
with one of the dishes, Mr. Siboni arose, went out in the 
kitchen, and said to the servants that I was no " cameriere ; " 
and from that time I came oftener into the parlor, where his 
niece Marietta, a girl of talent, was occupied in drawing Si- 
boni's picture as Achilles in Paer's opera ; I acted as model, 
dressed in a large tunic or toga, fit for the tall and strong Si- 
boni, but not for me, a poor, lean, overgrown boy ; this con- 
trast, however, amused the lively Italian lady, who laughed 
heartily and drew with great rapidity. 

The opera singers came daily for practice, and sometimes 
I was allowed to be present. 



30 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" II maestro " became sometimes under the singing so dis- 
contented that his Italian blood flew up into his cheeks, and 
he burst out violently in German or in queer Danish. Al 
though it did not concern me, I was so frightened that I shiv- 
ered in all my limbs. He on whom I believed my whole fu- 
ture was depending, made me shake with fear, and sometimes, 
when he was giving me a lesson, his severe look would make 
my voice to quiver and bring tears into my eyes. 

" Hikke banke Du " (I shall not beat you), said he in 
broken Danish and let me go ; but calling me back again he 
put some money into my hand, " to amuse yourself with/' said 
he, with a kind-hearted smile. 

After all, I have since understood that Mr. Siboni was an 
excellent singing-master, the founder of a good school of dra- 
matic singing, but not so esteemed by the public as he deserved 
to be. Most people looked on him as a foreigner, who was 
eating bread that might just as well have been given to a na- 
tive, not knowing that among the natives there was not one 
so good and able as he. 

The Italian operas, which at that time had a great reputa- 
tion throughout Europe, and were brought upon our stage by 
Siboni, were received with hostility only because they were 
Italian operas and Mr. Siboni an Italian. "Gazza badra" 
was hissed, also " La Straniera," and when Siboni at his ben- 
efit had chosen Paer's German opera, " Die Rache des Achil- 
les," in which he played the chief part, he was hissed. The 
injustice of this and Siboni's great merit have been, since his 
death, acknowledged by many, who at that time despised and 
overlooked compositions of Rossini and Bellini, but a few 
years after were applauding Verdi and Ricci, and it went so 
far finally that no music or singing were of any value except 
they were Italian ; but Mr. Siboni did not live to see that 
change. 

He tried with his whole soul to teach his pupils not only to 
sing, but also to understand and conceive the character they 
were representing. He was in want of words to express him- 
self in the German language, and the Danish he knew far less. 
Most of the singers could only understand one of those lan- 
guages, and this often occasioned comical scenes. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 3 1 

Half a year afterward my voice broke, or was injured, in 
consequence of my being compelled to wear bad shoes through 
the winter, and having besides no warm under-clothing. There 
was no longer any prospect that I should become a fine singer. 
Siboni told me that candidly, and counseled me to go to 
Odense, and there learn a trade. 

I who in the rich colors of fancy had described to my 
mother the happiness which I actually felt, must now return 
home and become an object of derision ! Agonized with this 
thought, I stood as if crushed to the earth. Yet, precisely 
amid this apparently great unhappiness lay the stepping-stones 
of a better fortune. 

As I found myself again abandoned, and was pondering by 
myself upon what was best for me next to do, it occurred 
to me that the Poet Guldberg, a brother of the Colonel of that 
name in Odense, who had shown me so much kindness, lived 
in Copenhagen. He lived at that time near the new church- 
yard outside the city, of which he has so beautifully sung in 
his poems. I wrote to him, and related to him everything ; 
afterward I went to him myself, and found him surrounded 
with books and tobacco pipes. The strong, warm-hearted 
man received me kindly ; and as he saw by my letter how in- 
correctly I wrote, he promised to give me instruction in the 
Danish tongue; he examined me a little in German, and 
thought that it would be well if he could improve me in this 
respect also. More than this, he made me a present of the 
profits of a little work which he had just then published ; it 
became known, and I believe they exceeded one hundred rix- 
dollars banco ; the excellent Weyse and others also supported 
me. He and other good people subscribed a little sum for me, 
and the two servant-girls who lived at Siboni's also offered me 
kindly of their wages nine Danish marks quarterly ; they only 
paid the first quarter, but still it proved their good-will toward 
me. I have never since seen these girls. 

The composer, Mr. Kuhlau, with whom I never had spoken, 
was also among the subscribers ; Kuhlau himself had known 
what it was to be a poor child ; he was brought up in poverty, 
and it is told me, that he ran errands in the cold winter, and 
one evening, having gone for a bottle of beer, he fell and broke 



32 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

the bottle, and by the accident lost the sight of one of his 
eyes. 

It was too expensive for me to lodge at a public-house ; I 
was therefore obliged to seek for private lodgings. My igno- 
rance of the world led me to a widow who lived in one of the 
most disreputable streets of Copenhagen ; she was inclined to 
receive me into her house, and I never suspected what kind 
of world it was which moved around me. .She was a stern 
but active dame ; she described to me the other people of the 
city in such horrible colors as made me suppose that I was in 
the only safe haven there. I was to pay twenty rix- dollars 
monthly for one room, which was nothing but an empty store- 
room, without window or light, but I had permission to sit 
in her parlor. I was to make trial of it at first for two days ; 
meantime, on the following day she told me that I could de- 
cide to stay or immediately go. I, who so easily attach my- 
self to people, already liked her, and felt myself at home with 
her ; but more than sixteen dollars per month Weyse had 
told me I must not pay, and this was the sum which I had 
received from him and Guldberg, so that no surplus remained 
to me for my other expenses. This troubled me very much ; 
when she was gone out of the room, I seated myself on the 
sofa, and contemplated the portrait of her deceased husband. 
I was so wholly a child, that as the tears rolled down my own 
cheeks, I wetted the eyes of the portrait with my tears, in 
order that the dead man might feel how troubled I was, and 
influence the heart of his wife. She must have seen that 
nothing more was to be drained out of me, for when she re- 
turned to the room she said that she would receive me into 
her house for the sixteen rix-dollars. I thanked God and the 
dead man. 

The following day I brought her all the money, very happy 
now at rinding a home, but not leaving for myself a single 
skilling to buy me. shoes, clothes, or other necessities, of which 
I was in great want. 

I found myself in the midst of the mysteries of Copenha- 
gen, but I did not understand how to interpret them. There 
was in the house in which I lived a friendly young lady, who 
lived alone, and often wept ; every evening her old father 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 33 

came and paid her a visit. I opened the door to him fre- 
quently ; he wore a plain sort of coat, had his throat very 
much tied up, and his hat pulled over his eyes. He always 
drank his tea with her, and nobody dared to be present, be- 
cause he was not fond of company : she never seemed very 
glad at his coming. Many years afterward, when I had 
reached another step on the ladder of life, when the refined 
world of fashionable life was opened before me, I saw one 
evening, in the midst of a brilliantly lighted hall, a polite old 
gentleman covered with orders : that was the old father in 
the shabby coat, — he whom I had let in. He had little idea 
that I had opened the door to him when he played his part 
as guest, but I, on my side, then had also no 'thought but for 
my own comedy-playing ; that is to say, I was at that time so 
much of a child that I played with my puppet theatre and 
made my dolls' clothes ; and in order that I might obtain 
gayly colored fragments for this purpose, I used to go to the 
shops and ask for patterns of different kinds of stuffs and rib- 
bons. I myself did not possess a single skilling ; my land- 
lady received all the money each month in advance ; only 
now and then, when I did any errands for her, she gave me 
something, and that went in the purchase of paper or for old 
play-books. I got many good and amusing books from the 
University Library. One day I went up to the University 
Dean, old Mr. Rasmus Nyrup, who was son of a peasant and 
had studied at Odense grammar school, and told him that I 
also was from Odense ; he was struck by my peculiarities, 
took me into his favor, and allowed me to go and look over 
the books in the library at the Round Church. He only com- 
manded me to put them again in their right place, and that I 
did very conscientiously. He let me also take home with me 
many picture-books. 

I was now very happy, and was doubly so because Professor 
Guldberg had induced Lindgron, the first comic actor at the 
theatre, to give me instruction. He gave me several parts in 
Holberg to learn, — such as Hendrik and the Silly JBoy> for 
which I had shown some talent. My desire, however, was to 
play the " Correggio." I obtained permission to learn this 
piece in my own way, although Lindgron asked, with comic 



34 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. . 

gravity, whether I expected to resemble the great painter ? I, 
however, repeated to him the soliloquy in the picture gallery 
with so much feeling, that the old man clapped me on the* 
shoulder and said, " Feeling you have ; but you must not be 
an actor, though God knows what else. Speak to Guldberg 
about your learning Latin : that always opens the way for a 
student." 

I a student ! That was a thought which had never come 
before into my head. The theatre lay nearer to me, and was 
dearer too ; yet Latin I had also always wished to learn. 
But before I spoke on the subject to Guldberg, I mentioned 
it to the lady who obtained for me gratuitous instruction in 
German; she told me that Latin was the most expensive 
language in the world, and that it was not possible to gain free 
instruction in it. Guldberg, however, managed it so that one 
of his friends, Provost Bentzien out of kindness, gave me two 
lessons a week. 

The dancer, Dahlen, whose wife at that time was one of the 
first artistes on the Danish boards, opened his house to me. 
I passed many an evening there, and the gentle, warm-hearted 
lady was kind to me. The husband took me with him to the 
dancing-school, and that was to me one step nearer to the 
theatre. There stood I for whole mornings, with a long staff, 
and stretched my legs ; but notwithstanding all my good-will, 
it was Dahlen's opinion that I should never get beyond a 
figurante. One advantage, however, I had gained ; I might 
in an evening make my appearance behind the scenes of the 
theatre ; nay, even sit upon the farthest bench in the box of 
the figurantes. It seemed to me as if I had got my foot just 
within the theatre, although I had never yet been upon the 
stage itself. 

One night the operetta of the " Two Little Savoyards " was 
given ; in the market scene, every one, even the supernumer- 
aries, might go up to help in filling the stage ; I heard them 
say so, and rouging myself a little, I went happily up with the 
others. I was in my ordinary dress, — the confirmation coat, 
which still held together, although, with regard to brushing 
and repairs, it looked but miserably, and the great hat which 
fell down over my face. I was very conscious of the ill 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 35 

condition of my attire, and would have been glad to have con- 
cealed it ; but, through the endeavor to do so, my movements 
became still more angular. I did not dare to hold myself up- 
right, because, by so doing, I exhibited all the more plainly 
the shortness of my waistcoat, which I had outgrown. . I had 
the feeling very plainly that people would make themselves 
merry about me \ yet, at this moment, I felt nothing but the 
happiness of stepping for the first time before the foot-lamps. 
My heart beat \ I stepped forward ; there came up one of the 
singers, who at that time was much thought of, but now is 
forgotten \ he took me by the hand, and jeeringly wished me 
happiness on my debut. " Allow me to introduce you to the 
Danish public," said he, and drew me forward to the lamps. 
The people would laugh at me — I felt it ; the tears rolled 
down my cheeks ; I tore myself loose, and left the stage full 
of anguish. 

Shortly after this, Dahlen arranged a ballet of " Armida," in 
which I received a little part : I was a spirit. In this ballet I 
became acquainted with the lady of Professor Heiberg, the 
wife of the poet, and now a highly esteemed actress on the 
Danish stage ; she, then a little girl, had also a part in it, and 
our names stood printed in the bill. That was a moment in 
my life, when my name was printed ! I fancied I could see 
in it a nimbus of immortality. I was continually looking at 
the printed paper. I carried the programme of the ballet with 
me at night to bed, lay and read my name by candle-light — 
in short, I was happy ! 

I had now been two years in Copenhagen. The sum of 
money which had been collected for me was expended, but I 
was ashamed of making known my wants and my necessities. 
I had removed to the house of a woman whose husband, when 
living, was master of a trading-vessel, and there I had only 
lodging and breakfast. Those were heavy, dark days for me. 
The lady believed that I went out to dine with various families, 
whilst I only ate a little bread on one of the benches in the 
royal garden. Very rarely did I venture into some of the 
lowest eating-houses, and choose there the least expensive dish. 
I was, in truth, very forlorn \ but I did not feel the whole 
weight of my condition. Ever} 7 person who spoke to me kindly 



36 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I took for a faithful friend. God was with me in my little 
room ; and many a night, when I have said my evening prayer, 
I asked of Him, like a child, " Will things soon be better with 
me ? " I had the notion, that as it went with me on New 
Year's Day, so would it go with me through the whole year ; 
and my highest wishes were to obtain a part in a play. 

It was now New Year's Day. The theatre was closed, and 
only a half-blind porter sat at the entrance to the stage, on 
which there was not a soul. I stole past him with beating 
heart, got between the movable scenes and the curtain, and 
advanced to the open part of the stage. Here I fell down 
upon my knees, but not a single verse for declamation could I 
recall to my memory. I then said aloud the Lord's Prayer, 
and went out with the persuasion, that because I had spoken 
from the stage on New Year's Day, I should in the course of 
the year succeed in speaking still more, as well as in having a 
part assigned to me. 

During the two years of my residence in Copenhagen I had 
never been out into the open country. Once only had I been 
in the park, and there I had been deeply engrossed by study- 
ing the diversions of the people and their gay tumult. In the 
spring of the third year, I went out for the first time amid the 
verdure of a spring morning. It was into the garden of the 
Fredericksberg, the summer residence of Frederick VI. I 
stood still suddenly under the first large budding beech-tree. 
The sun made the leaves transparent — there was a fragrance, 
a freshness — the birds sang. I was overcome by it — I 
shouted aloud for joy, threw my arms around the tree, and 
kissed it. 

" Is he mad ? " said a man close behind me. It was one of 
the servants of the castle. I ran away, shocked at what I had 
heard, and then went thoughtfully and calmly back to the city. 

My voice had, in the mean time, in part regained its rich- 
ness. The singing-master of the choir-school heard it, offered 
me a place in the school, thinking that, by singing with the 
choir, I should acquire greater freedom in the exercise of my 
powers on the stage. I thought that I could see by this 
means a new way opened for me. I went from the dancing- 
school into the singing-school, and entered the choir, now as a 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

shepherd, and now as a warrior. The theatre was my world. 
I had permission to enter the pit, and thus it fared ill with my 
Latin. I heard many people say that there was no Latin re- 
quired for singing in the choir, and that without the knowl- 
edge of this language it was possible to become a great actor. 
I thought there was good sense in that, and very often, either 
with or without reason, excused myself from my Latin even- 
ing lesson. Guldberg became aware of this, and for the first 
time I received a reprimand which almost crushed me to the 
earth. I fancy that no criminal could suffer more by hearing 
the sentence of death pronounced upon him. My distress of 
mind must have expressed itself in my countenance, for he 
said, " Do not act any more comedy." But it was no comedy 
to me. 

I was now to learn Latin no longer. I felt my dependence 
upon the kindness of others in such a degree as I had never 
done before. Occasionally I had had gloomy and earnest 
thoughts in looking forward to my future, because I was in 
want of the very necessaries of life ; at other times I had the 
perfect thoughtlessness of a child. 

The widow of the celebrated Danish statesman, Christian 
Colbjornsen, and her daughter, were the first ladies of high 
rank who cordially befriended the poor lad ; who listened to 
me with sympathy, and saw me frequently. Mrs. von Col- 
bjornsen resided, during the summer, at Bakkehus, where also 
lived the poet Rahbek and his interesting wife. Rahbek 
never spoke to me ; but his lively and kind-hearted wife often 
amused herself with me. I had at that time again begun to 
write a tragedy, which I read aloud to her. Immediately on 
hearing the first scenes, she exclaimed, " But you have actu- 
ally taken whole passages out of Oehlenschlager and Inge- 
mann." 

" Yes, but they are so beautiful ! " replied I in my simplic- 
ty, and read on. 

One day, when I was going from her to Mrs. von Colbjorn- 
sen, she gave me a handful of roses, and said, " Will you take 
them up to her ? It will certainly give her pleasure to receive 
them from the hand of a poet." 

These words were said half in jest ; but it was the first 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

.me that anybody had connected my name with that of poet. 
It went through me, body and soul, and tears filled my eyes. 
I know that, from this very moment, my mind was awoke to 
writing and poetry. Formerly it had been merely an amuse- 
ment by way of variety from my puppet theatre. 

One day I went out to Bakkehus believing myself very nicely 
dressed ; Edward Colbjornsen had given me a very good blue 
dress-coat, better than I ever before had worn, but it was too 
large and wide for me, especially across the breast ; I could 
not afford to get it altered, and so I buttoned it close up to 
the neck ; the cloth looked quite new and the buttons were 
shining, but across the breast it was far too wide ; in order to 
remedy this want, I filled out the empty room with a heap of 
old theatre hand-bills ; they were loosely laid one upon another 
between the coat and the breast, and looked like a hump. In 
this attire I presented myself to Madame Colbjornsen and 
Madame Rahbek ; they asked me if I would not unbutton my 
coat, it was so warm, but I took pretty good care not to for 
fear of dropping the hand-bills. 

At Bakkehus lived also Professor Thiele, a young student 
at that time, but even then the editor of the Danish popular 
legends, and known to the public as the solver of Baggesen's 
riddle and as the writer of beautiful poetry. He was pos- 
sessed of sentiment, true inspiration, and heart. He had calmly 
and attentively watched the unfolding of my mind, until we 
now became friends. He was one of the few who, at that 
time, spoke the truth of me, when other people were making 
themselves merry at my expense, and having only eyes for 
that which was ludicrous in me. People had called me, in 
jest, the little orator, and, as such, I was an object of curios- 
ity. They found amusement in me, and I mistook every smile 
for a smile of applause. One of my later friends has told me 
that it probably was about this period that he saw me for the 
first time. It was in the drawing-room of a rich tradesman, 
where people were making themselves very merry over me. 
They desired me to repeat one of my poems, and, as I did 
this with great feeling, the merriment was changed into sym- 
pathy with me. 

I must not forget to mention that I found a retreat, if I may 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



39 



call it so, — a cozy little room, where the voices of earlier days 
sounded in my heart \ it was in the house of a worthy old 
lady, the mother of our renowned, now deceased, Urban Jiir- 
gensen ; she had a very clear judgment and was well edu- 
cated, but belonged to the last generation, in which she still 
lived. Her father had formerly been castellan of the castle 
of Antvorskov, and Holberg used to come there on Sundays 
from Soro ; he and her father would walk up and down the 
floor talking together about politics ; one day the mother sit- 
ting at the spinning-wheel undertook to share in the conversa- 
tion : "I believe the distaff is talking," said Holberg, and 
her mother could never forgive the witty, coarse gentleman 
these words ! The one who was then a little child, now sitting 
an old, old woman by me, told me all these things. 

The poet Wessel also resorted to her house, and made 
great fun of the fop, Mr. Reiser, whose horrible fire-stories 
we all know ; he let the poor man one day go home through 
the dirty streets in shoes and silk stockings. 

She read daily her, classics, — Corneille and Racine, — and 
spoke with me of them, of their great thoughts and the charac- 
ters they drew; she had no admiration for modern romantic 
poetry. 

With a mother's warm affection she spoke of her exiled son, 
who in the war had so adventurously proclaimed himself King 
of Iceland, and therefore dared never return to Denmark ; she 
understood well how to describe his character and will as they 
showed themselves in his childhood. 

How attractive that old woman's company was to me ! I 
listened to all she had seen, thought, and read, and I was in 
her house as a dear child whom she loved to have near her. 
I read her my first verses, and my tragedy, " Skovkapellet " 
( " The Chapel in the Wood "), and she said one day, with an 
earnestness that made me humble : " You are a poet, perhaps 
as good as Oehlenschlager ! in ten years — yes, when I am no 
longer here — please to remember me!" I remember that 
tears rushed to my eyes, I was so solemnly and wonderfully 
touched by these words ; but I know also that I thought it 
impossible for me to reach so high as to be an acknowledged 
poet, and far less to be named with Oehlenschlager. " What 



40 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

a good thing it would be for you to study," said she ; " but 
many ways lead toward Rome ! your way will no doubt also 
bring you there." 

I heard it said every day, what a good thing it would be for 
me if I could study. People advised me to devote myself to 
science, but no one moved one step to enable me to do so ; it 
was labor enough for me to keep body and soul together. It 
therefore occurred to me to write a tragedy, which I would offer 
to the Theatre Royal, and would then begin to study- with the 
money which I should thus obtain. Whilst Guldberg in- 
structed me in Danish, I had written a tragedy from a Ger- 
man story, called " The Chapel in the Wood • " yet as this 
was done merely as an exercise in the language, and as he 
forbade me in the most decided manner to bring it out, I 
would not do so. I originated my own material, therefore ; 
and within fourteen days I wrote my national tragedy called 
the " Robbers in Wissenberg" (the name of a little village in 
Funen). There was scarcely a word in it correctly written, 
as I had no person to help me, because I meant it to be anony- 
mous ; there was, nevertheless, one person admitted into the 
secret, namely, the young lady whom I had met with in 
Odense, during my preparation for Confirmation, — the only 
one who at that time showed me kindness and good- will. It 
was through her that I was introduced to the Colbjornsen fam- 
ily, and thus known and received in all those circles of which 
the one leads into the other. She paid some one to prepare 
a legible copy of my piece, and undertook to present it for pe- 
rusal. After an interval of six weeks, I received it back, ac- 
companied by a letter which said that people did not fre- 
quently wish to retain works which betrayed, in so great a de- 
gree, a want of elementary knowledge. 

It was just at the close of the theatrical season, in May, 
1822, that I received a letter from the directors, by which I 
was dismissed from the singing and dancing school, the let- 
ter adding also, that my participation in the school teaching 
could lead to no advantage for me, but that they wished some 
of my many friends would enable me to receive an education, 
without which talent availed nothing. I felt myself again, as 
it were, cast out into the wide world, without help and without 



THE STORY OH MY LIFE. 



41 



support. It was absolutely necessary that I should write a 
piece for the theatre, and that it must be accepted \ there was 
no other salvation for me. I wrote, therefore, a tragedy 
founded on a passage in history, and I called it " Alfsol." I 
was delighted with the first act, and with this I immediately 
went to the Danish translator of Shakespeare, Admiral WulrT, 
now deceased, who good-naturedly heard me read it. In Ad- 
miral Wulffs house and in his family circle I found a true 
home. Speaking of our first acquaintance, he told me many 
years afterward in joke, and exaggerating it a little, that I said 
entering the room : " You have translated Shakespeare ; I ad- 
mire him greatly, but I have also written a tragedy : shall I 
read it to you ? " 

Wulff invited me to breakfast with him, but I would not 
take anything, but read and read all the time, and having 
finished my reading I said : " Do you think I shall amount to 
anything, — I wish it so much ? " I put my papers into my 
pocket, and when he asked me to call again soon, I answered, 
" Yes, I will, when I have written a new tragedy." — " But that 
will be a long time," said he. " I think," said I, " that in a 
fortnight I may have another one ready," and with these words 
I was out of the door. In after years I met with the most cor- 
dial reception in his family. At that time I also introduced 
myself to our celebrated physicist Orsted, and his house has 
remained to me to this day an affectionate home, to which my 
heart has firmly attached itself, and where I find my oldest 
and most unchangeable friends. 

• A favorite preacher, the rural dean Gutfeldt, was living at 
that time, and he it was who exerted himself most earnestly 
for my tragedy, which was now finished ; and having written 
a letter of recommendation, he sent it to the managers of the 
theatre. I was suspended between hope and fear. In the 
course of the summer I endured bitter want, but I told it to 
no one, else many a one, whose sympathy I had experienced, 
would have helped me to the utmost of their means. A false 
shame prevented me from confessing what I endured. Still 
happiness filled my heart. I read then for the first time the 
works of Walter Scott. A new world was opened to me : I 
forgot the reality, and gave to the circulating library that 
which should have provided me with a dinner. 



42 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

The present conference councilor, Collin, one of the most 
distinguished men of Denmark, who unites with the greatest 
ability the noblest and best heart, to whom I looked up with 
confidence in all things, who had been a second father to me, 
and in whose children I have found brothers and sisters, — 
this excellent man I saw now for the first time. He was at 
that time director of the Theatre Royal, and people univer- 
sally told me that it would be the best thing for me if he 
would interest himself on my behalf : it was either Orsted or 
Gutfeldt who first mentioned me to him ; and now for the first 
time I went to that house which was to become so dear to me. 
Carl Bernhard has in his novel, " Chronicles of the Time of 
Christian II.," given a description of that old house, from its 
first days until its last celebrity as Collin's home. Before the 
ramparts of Copenhagen were extended, this house lay out- 
side the gate, and served as a summer residence to the Span- 
ish Ambassador ; now, however, it stands a crooked, angular 
framework building, in a respectable street • an old-fashioned 
wooden balcony leads to the entrance, and a great tree 
spreads its green branches over the court and its pointed ga- 
bles. It was to become a paternal house to me. Who does 
not willingly linger over the description of home ? 

I discovered only the man of business in Collin \ his con- 
versation was grave and in few words. I went away, without 
expecting any sympathy from this man ■ and yet it was pre- 
cisely Collin who, in all sincerity, thought for my advantage, 
and who worked for it silently, as he had done for others, 
through the whole course of his active life. But at that time 
I did not understand the apparent calmness with which he 
listened, whilst his heart bled for the afflicted, and he always 
labored for them with zeal and success, and knew how to help 
them. He touched so lightly upon my tragedy, which had 
been sent to him, and on account of which many people had 
overwhelmed me with flattering speeches, that I regarded 
him rather as an enemy than a protector. 

In a few days I was sent for by the directors of the theatre, 
when Rahbek gave me back my play as useless for the stage ; 
adding, however, that there were so many grains of corn 
scattered in it, they hoped that perhaps, by earnest study, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



43 



after going to school and the previous knowledge of all that is 
requisite, I might, some time, be able to write a work which 
should be worthy of being acted on the Danish stage. 

In order therefore to obtain the means for my support and 
the necessary instruction, Collin recommended me to King 
Frederick VI., who granted to me a certain sum annually for 
some years ; and, by means of Collin also, the directors of 
the high schools allowed me to receive free instruction in the 
grammar school at Slagelse, where just then a new, and, as 
was said, an active rector was appointed. I was almost dumb 
with astonishment : never had I thought that my life would 
take this direction, although I had no correct idea of the path 
which I had now to tread. I was to go with the earliest mail 
to Slagelse, which lay twelve Danish miles from Copenhagen, 
to the place where also the poets Baggesen and Ingemann had 
gone to school. I was to receive money quarterly from Collin ; 
I was to apply to him in all cases, and he it was who was to 
ascertain my industry and my progress. 

I went to him the second time to express to him my thanks. 
Mildly and kindly he said to me, " Write to me without re- 
straint about everything which you require, and tell me how it 
goes with you." From this hour I struck root in his heart ; no 
father could have been more to me than he was, and is ; none 
could have more heartily rejoiced in my happiness, and my 
after reception with the public ; none have shared my sorrow 
more kindly ; and I am proud to say that one of the most ex- 
cellent men which Denmark possesses feels toward me as to- 
ward his own child. His beneficence was conferred without 
his making me feel it painful either by word or look. That 
was not the case with every one to whom, in this change of 
my fortunes, I had to offer my thanks ; I was told to think of 
my inconceivable happiness and my poverty ; in Collin's words 
was expressed the warm-heartedness of a father, and to him 
it was that properly I was indebted for everything. 

The journey was hastily determined upon, and I had yet for 
myself some business to arrange. I had spoken to an ac- 
quaintance from Odense who had the management of a small 
printing concern for a widow, to get " Alfsol " printed, that I 
might, by the sale of the work, make a little money. Before, 



44 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

however, the piece was printed, it was necessary that I should 
obtain a certain number of subscribers ; but these were not 
obtained, and the manuscript lay in the printing-office, which, 
at the time I went to fetch it away, was shut up. Some years 
afterward, however, it suddenly made its appearance in print 
without my knowledge or my desire, in its unaltered shape, 
but without my name. 

The fictitious name which I took seems at first sight a great 
piece of vanity, and yet it was not so, but really an expression 
of love, — a childish love, such as the child has when it calls its 
doll by the name it likes best. I loved William Shakespeare 
and Walter Scott, and of course I loved also myself. I took 
therefore my name Christian, and so I assumed the fictitious 
name "William Christian Walter." The book exists still, 
and contains the tragedy " Alfsol," and a tale, " The Spectre 
at Palnatoke's Grave," in which neither the spectre nor Pal- 
natoke play any part ; it is a very rough imitation of Walter 
Scott. Dana, the speaker in the prologue, says that I am 
" only seventeen years old," and that I bring 

— " a wreath of beech-roots and Danish flowers." 

It is a very miserable production throughout. 

On a beautiful autumn day I set off with the mail from 
Copenhagen to begin my school-life in Slagelse. A young 
student, who a month before had passed his first examination, 
and now was travelling home to Jutland to exhibit himself 
there as a student, and to see once more his parents and his 
friends, sat by my side, and exulted for joy over the new life 
which now lay before him ; he assured me that he should be 
the most unhappy of human beings if he were in my place, 
and were again beginning to go to the grammar school. But 
I travelled with a good heart toward the little city of Zealand. 
My mother received a joyful letter from me. I only wished 
that my father and the old grandmother yet lived, and could 
hear that I now went to the grammar school. 



CHAPTER III. 

WHEN, late in the evening, I arrived at the inn in Sla- 
gelse, I asked the hostess if there were anything re- 
markable in the city. 

" Yes/' said she, " a new English fire-engine and Pastor 
Bastholm's library," — and those probably were all the lions in 
the city. A few officers of the Lancers composed the fine- 
gentleman world. Everybody knew what was done in every- 
body's house, whether a scholar was elevated or degraded in 
his class, and the like. A private theatre, to which, at gen- 
eral rehearsal, the scholars of the grammar school and the 
maid-servants of the town had free entrance, furnished rich 
material for conversation. In my " Picture Book without 
Pictures," the fourth night, I have given a sketch of it. 

I boarded with a respectable widow of the educated class, 
and had a little chamber looking out into the garden and 
field. My place in the school was in the lowest class, among 
little boys : I knew indeed nothing at all. 

I was actually like a wild bird which is confined in a cage ; 
I had the greatest desire to learn, but for the moment I floun- 
dered about, as if I had been thrown into the sea ; one 
wave followed another ; grammar, geography, mathematics : 
I felt myself overpowered by them, and feared that I should 
never be able to acquire all these. The Rector, who took a 
peculiar delight in turning everything to ridicule, did not, of 
course, make an exception in my case. To me he stood there 
as a divinity ; I believed unconditionally every word which he 
spoke. One day, when I had replied incorrectly to his ques- 
tion, and he said that I was stupid, I mentioned it to Collin, 
and told him my anxiety, lest I did not deserve all that peo- 
ple had done for me ; but he consoled me. Occasionally, 
however, on some subjects of instruction, I began to receive 
a good certificate, and the teachers were heartily kind to me ; 



46 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

yet, notwithstanding that I advanced, I still lost confidence in 
myself more and more. On one of the first examinations? 
however, I obtained the praise of the Rector. He wrote the 
same in my character-book ; and, happy in this, I went a few 
days afterward to Copenhagen. Guldberg, who saw the prog- 
ress I had made, received me kindly, and commended my 
zeal. 

" I advise you as a friend not to make any more verses," 
said he, and the same advice was repeated on all sides. I 
did not write more verses, but reflected on my duties, and on 
the very uncertain hope I had of becoming a student. I paid 
a visit to the learned Mr. Bastholm of Slagelse, editor of a 
West Zealand newspaper, who lived in retirement devoted only 
to his studies. 

I presented him a couple of my earlier writings and that 
gave him an interest in me. He also advised me to keep to 
my school-books, and wrote me a letter, in which he presented 
with true sentiment and sincere advice a truth, which may 
always have a place in many people's mind. He wrote : — 

" I have read your prologue, my young friend, and I must 
confess that God has endowed you with a vivid imagination 
and a warm heart ; you still need cultivation of mind, but that 
may come, as you now have a good opportunity to procure it. 
Your constant aim should be to endeavor with the utmost 
zeal to finish your studies, and for that reason you should put 
aside all other things. 

" I could wish that your juvenile essays were not printed, as 
I cannot see why the public should be incumbered with im- 
perfections — we have plenty of that ; still they are so far good 
that they may serve to justify the support you receive from the 
public. The young poet must shun the infection of vanity, 
and watch over the purity and strength of his feelings. In 
the present period of your studies I advise you to write poems 
but seldom, and only when you need air for your feelings. 
Don't write anything for which you have to hunt after words 
and thoughts, but only when the soul is animated by an idea 
and the heart warmed by true feeling. 

" Observe closely nature, life, and yourself, that you may 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 47 

procure original material for your poetical pictures ; make a 
choice from the things that surround you \ reflect from all 
points of view on what you see ; take up the pen, become 
poet, as if you did not know that any poet had ever existed in 
the world before you, or as if you had not to learn of anybody 3 
preserve that nobleness of mind, that purity and sublimity 
of soul, without which the wreath of poetry never can crown 
a mortal. Your affectionate 

" Slagelse, February 1, 1823." " BaSTHOLM. 

With the same sympathy I was followed by the before men- 
tioned Colonel, now General Guldberg, of Odense ; he was 
extremely happy at my admission into a higher school, wrote 
frequently to me, and always encouraged and strengthened me ; 
as the first summer vacation came on, he invited me to come 
over t<9 him, — nay, furnished me with the means to defray my 
travelling expenses. I had not been in my native town since 
I left it to seek my fortune ; in that interval my old grand- 
mother had died and also my grandfather. 

My mother often told me, when I was a little boy, that I fyad 
a fortune in prospect : that I should be heir of my grandfather, 
who owned a house ; it was a little, poor wooden house, which 
was sold after his death and immediately pulled down ■ most 
of the old man's money was applied to pay the taxes in ar- 
rear, and the authorities had seized " the big stove with brass 
drum," a piece worth owning, they said, and it was taken up 
to the town-hall. There was so much money that they could 
have made a cart-load of the coins, but they were the old re- 
duced coins, which the government no longer received. In 
18 13, when these coins were reduced, the old insane man was 
told that they were good for nothing. " No man can reject 
the King's money ! " said he, " and the King won't reject his 
own : " that was his whole answer. " The big inheritance " I 
had heard so much about was reduced to some twenty rix- 
dollars and passed over to me. I must however candidly 
confess, that I did not care much about those riches ; my 
thoughts were only lingering on my visit to my home. I felt 
rich and happy, and my mind was excited with expectation. 

I crossed the Belt, and went on foot to Odense. When 



48 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I came near enough to see the lofty old church tower, my 
heart was more and more affected ; I felt deeply the care 
of God for me, and I burst into tears. My mother rejoiced 
over me. The families of Iversen and Guldberg received me 
cordially ; and in the little streets I saw the people open their 
windows to look at me, for everybody knew how remarka- 
bly well things had fared with me ; nay, I fancied I actually 
stood upon the pinnacle of fortune, when one of the principal 
citizens, who had built a high tower to his house, led me up 
there, and I looked out thence over the city and the surround- 
ing country, and some old women in the hospital below, who 
had known me from childhood, pointed up to me. One after- 
noon, in company with the families of Guldberg and the Bishop, 
I sailed in a boat on the stream, and my mother shed tears 
of joy j "for," as she said, "I was honored like the child of a 
count." • 

As soon, however, as I returned to Slagelse, this halo of 
glory vanished, as well as every thought of it. I may freely 
confess that I was industrious, and I rose, as soon as it was 
possible, into a higher class ; but in proportion as I rose did 1 4 
feel the pressure upon me more strongly, and that my endeav- 
ors were not sufficiently productive. Many an evening, when 
sleep overcame me, I would wash my head with cold water, or 
run about the lonely little garden, till I was again wakeful, 
and could comprehend the book anew. The Rector filled up a 
portion of his hours of teaching with jest, nicknames, and not 
the happiest of witticisms. I was as if paralyzed with anxiety 
when he entered the room, and from that cause my replies 
often expressed the opposite of that which I wished to say, 
and thereby my anxiety was all the more increased. What 
was to become of me ? 

In a moment of ill-humor I wrote a letter to the head mas- 
ter, who was one of those who was most friendly inclined to 
me. I said in this letter that I regarded myself as a person 
so little gifted by nature, that it was impossible for me to 
study, and that the people in Copenhagen threw away the 
money which they spent upon me : I besought him therefore 
to counsel me what I should do. The excellent man strength- 
ened me with mild words, and wrote to me a most friendly 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



49 



and consolatory letter : he said that the Rector meant kindly 
by me ; that it was his custom and way of acting ; that I 
was making all the progress that people could expect from 
me : and that I need not 'doubt of my abilities. He told me 
that he himself was a peasant youth of three and twenty — 
older than I myself was — when he began his studies ; the 
misfortune for me was, that I ought to have been treated differ- 
ently from the other scholars, but that this could hardly be 
done in a school ; still that things were progressing, and that I 
stood well both with the teachers and my fellow- students. I 
was always praised for Religion, Biblical History, and Danish 
themes : from all the classes, from the highest one too, one or 
another of the scholars used to come home to me to be helped 
in their Danish exercises, — "only not so well that it would be 
observed," was their request, — and I was again in turn helped 
by them in Latin. For "conduct," I got steadily every month 
from all the teachers the character " remarkably good ; " once 
it happened, however, that I only got "very good," and I 
was so troubled at the reduction that I immediately wrote a 
tragic-comical letter to Collin and told him that I was quite 
innocent, though I had only got the character " very good." 
In the mean time I knew that the Rector judged me otherwise 
than he reported ; now and then I discovered in him a gleam 
of kindness, and I was always among the scholars whom he 
invited to his house on Sundays \ and then he was quite an- 
other man, he was overflowing with jest and merriment, related 
funny stories, put up tin soldiers for us, and played with us 
and with his children. 

Every Sunday we had to attend the church and hear an old 
preacher ■ the other scholars learned their lessons in history 
and mathematics while he preached ; I learned my task in 
religion, and thought that by so doing it was less sinful. The 
general rehearsals at the private theatre were points of light 
in my school life ; they took place in a back building, where 
the lowing of the cows might be heard ; the street-decoration 
was a picture of the market-place of the city, by which means 
the representation had something familiar about it ; it amused 
the inhabitants to see their own houses. 

On Saturday afternoons it was my delight to go to the cas- 
4 



5<D THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

tie of Antvorskov, at that time only half in ruins, and once a 
monastery, where I pursued the excavating of the ruined cel- 
lars, as if it had been a Pompeii. 

In a little cottage there lived a young married couple, de- 
scended from a family of rank ; I believe they were married 
against the will of their parents ; they were truly very poor, 
but seemed happy, and the low-studded room with white- 
washed walls had an air of comfort and beauty ; fresh-gath- 
ered flowers were placed on the table, where also books in 
luxurious bindings w r ere scattered, and a harp stood ready for 
use. 

I had accidentally made acquaintance with the young 
couple, and was always very kindly received by them ; idyllic 
beauty was spread over that little abode, which was situated 
below the lonely castle on the top of the hill. I often ram- 
bled also to the crucifix of St. Anders, which stands upon one 
of the heights of Slagelse, and is one of the wooden crosses 
erected in the time of Catholicism in Denmark. St. Anders 
was a priest in Slagelse, and travelled to the Holy Land; 
on the last day he remained so long praying at the holy 
sepulchre, that the ship sailed away without him. Vexed at 
this circumstance, he walked along the shore, where a man 
met him riding on an ass, and took him up with him. Im- 
mediately he fell asleep, and when he awoke he heard the bells 
of Slagelse ringing. He lay upon the (Hvilehoi) hill of rest, 
where the cross now stands. He was at home a year and a 
day before the ship returned which sailed away without him, 
and an angel had borne him home. The legend, and the 
place where he woke, were both favorites of mine. On this 
hill I often sat in the evening and looked over meadow and 
cornfield down upon Corsoer where Baggesen was born. Here 
he might also have sat, when a scholar of Slagelse school, 
looking over the Belt to Funen. Upon this hill, I could in- 
dulge my fancies, and later, when passing here in the diligence, 
I often looked up to the hill with the cross, and thought of that 
portion of my life which was so closely attached to this spot. 

The happiest time, however, was when, once on a Sunday, 
whilst the wood was green, I went to the city of Soro, two 
(Danish) miles from Slagelse, which lies in the midst of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



51 



woods, surrounded by lakes. Here is an academy for the no- 
bility, founded by the poet Holberg. Everything lay in a 
conventual stillness. I visited here the poet Ingemann, who 
had just married, and who held a situation as teacher ; he had 
already received me kindly in Copenhagen ; but here his re- 
ception of me was still more kind. His life in this place 
seemed to me like a beautiful story ; flowers and vines twined 
around his window ; the rooms were adorned with the por- 
traits of distinguished poets, and other pictures. We sailed 
upon the lake with an ^Eolian harp made fast to the mast. 
Ingemann talked cheerfully, and his excellent, amiable wife 
treated me as if she were an elder sister: I loved these 
people. Our friendship has grown with years. I have been 
from that time almost every summer a welcome guest there, 
and I have experienced that there are people in whose society 
one is made better, as it were ; that which is bitter passes 
away, and the whole world appears in sunlight. 

Among the pupils in the academy of nobles, there were two 
who made verses ; they knew that I did the same, and they 
attached themselves to me. The one was Petit, who after- 
wards, certainly with the best intention, but not faithfully, 
translated several of my books. He has also written a strange, 
fantastical biography of me, in which, among other things, he 
gives a description of my paternal home that seems to have a 
great resemblance to that in "The Ugly Duckling." He makes 
my mother a Madonna, lets me run with rosy feet in the even- 
ing sun, and more of the same kind. Petit was nevertheless 
not without talent, and possessed of a warm, noble heart ; life 
brought him many sorrowful days. Now he is among the dead, 
and his vivacious spirit may have attained more serenity and 
repose. The other was the poet Carl Bagger, one of the most 
gifted of men who has come forward in Danish literature, but 
who has been unjustly judged. His poems are full of fresh- 
ness and originality ; his story, " The Life of my Brother,''* is a 
clever book, by the critique on which the " Danish Monthly 
Review of Literature " has proved that it does not understand 
how to give judgment. These two academicians were very 
different from me : life rushed rejoicingly through their veins ; 
I was sensitive and childlike, while I w r as the most grown of 



52 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

us three. The quiet Soro, with its woody solitude, became 
thus for me a home of poetry and friendship. 

An event that agitated much our little town was the execu- 
tion of three criminals down at Skjelskjor. A rich young 
daughter of a farmer had induced her suitor to kill her father, 
who opposed their match \ an accessory to the crime was the 
man-servant, who intended to marry the widow. Every one 
was going to see the execution, and the day was like a holi- 
day. The Rector dismissed the upper class from school, and 
we were to go and see the execution, for it would be a good 
thing for us to be acquainted with it, he said. 

The whole night we drove in open carriages, and at sunrise 
we reached Skjelskjor. It made a very strong impression 
upon me. I never shall forget seeing the criminals driven to 
the place of execution : the young girl, deadly pale, leaning her 
head against the breast of her robust sweetheart ; behind them 
the man-servant, livid, his black hair in disorder, and nodding 
with a squinting look at a few acquaintances, who shouted out 
to him " Farewell ! " Standing at the side of their coffins, they 
sang a hymn together with the minister ; the girl's voice was 
heard above all the others. My limbs could scarcely carry 
me ! these moments were more horrible for me than the very 
moment of death. I saw a poor sick man, whose superstitious 
parents, in order to cure him of a fit, had given him to drink a 
cup of blood from the persons executed ; he ran away in wild 
flight till he sank exhausted on the ground. A ballad-maker 
was vending his " melancholy airs ; " the words were put in the 
mouth of the malefactors, and sounded comically to a well- 
known melody. The whole tragedy made such an impression 
upon my fancy that for a long time after I was persecuted by 
the memory of it ; and though many years have passed away, 
it is still as fresh to me as if it happened yesterday. 

Events like this or other important incidents did not continue 
to happen • one day after another glided away, but the less 
there is going on and the more quiet and monotonous one's 
life is the sooner one thinks of preserving what passes, — of 
keeping a diary, as it is called. At that time I also kept such 
a one, of which I have retained a couple of leaves, in which 
the whole of my strange, childish nature at that time is faith- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



53 



fully reflected. I insert here some passages from it, copying 
them literally. 

I was then in the upper class but one, and my whole exist- 
ence and happiness depended on being promoted to the highest 
class at the approaching examination. I wrote : — 

" Wednesday. — Depressed in spirit I took up the Bible, 
which lay before me, for an oracle, opened it, pointed blindly at 
a place and read : ' O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself ! but 
in me is thine help ! ' (Hosea.) Yes, Father, I am weak, but 
thou lookest into my heart and wilt be my help so that I can be 
promoted to the fourth class. Have answered well in Hebrew. 

" Thursday. — Happened to pull off the leg of a spider \ 
went nicely through in mathematics. O God, God, to thee 
my heart's entire thanks. 

" Friday. — O God, help me ! The night is so wintry clear. 
The examination is well over — to-morrow comes the result. 

Moon ! to-morrow thou wilt behold either a pale, desperate 
being or one of the happiest. Read Schiller's c Kabale und 
Liebe.' 

" Saturday. — O God, now my fate is decided, but still 
hidden from me : what may it be ? God, my God ! do not 
forsake me ! my blood runs so fast through my veins, my 
nerves tremble with fear. O God, Almighty God, help me — 

1 do not deserve it, but be merciful O God, God ! — (Later.) I 
am promoted — Is it not strange ? My joy is not so violent as 
I supposed it would be. At eleven o'clock I wrote to Guld- 
berg and to my mother." 

At that time I made a vow to the Lord in my silent thoughts 
that if He would let me be promoted to the fourth class, I 
would go to Communion the following Sunday, and that I also 
did. 

You can see by this what trouble I had in my pious mind, 
and what degree of development I had reached, although at 
that time I was already twenty years old. How much better 
other young men at that age would have written in their diary ! 

The Rector grew weary of his residence in Slagelse ; he 
applied for the vacant post of Rector in the grammar school 
of Helsingor, and obtained it. He told me of it, and added 
kindly, that I might write to Collin and ask leave to accompany 



54 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

him thither ; that I might live in his house, and could even 
now remove to his family ; I should then in half a year become 
a student, which could not be the case if I remained behind, 
and that then he would himself give me some private lessons 
in Latin and Greek. I, of course, immediately received Col- 
lin's permission, and removed to the house of the Rector. 

I was now to take leave of Slagelse : it was very hard for 
me to say good-by to my comrades and the few families whose 
acquaintance I had made : of course, I also on that occasion 
got an album, in which, amongst others, my old teacher Mr. 
Snitker wrote something: he had been Ingemann and Poul 
Moller's teacher when they were scholars there. 

Carl Bagger wrote a poem addressed to me, which was 
more like a dedication to a young poet, than a poem to a boy 
going away to take his seat on a school-bench. And so I 
went thither, and approached heavy, wearisome days. 

I accompanied the Rector to Helsingor ; the journey, the 
first view of the Sound with its many sailing ships, the Kullen 
Mountains, and the beautiful country, all filled my mind with 
transport ; I described it in a letter to Rasmus Nyrup, and as 
I thought it very well written, I sent the same letter to others, 
addressing it to each of them. Unfortunately it pleased Nyrup 
so well that he inserted it in the " Copenhagen Pictorial," so 
that each of them who had got the letter, or rather the copy of 
it, believed that he saw his letter printed in the news-paper. 

The Rector's spirits were refreshed by the variety, the new 
company, and new activity, but only for a short time, and I 
soon felt myself forsaken ; I became depressed and suffered 
much in mind. The Rector had sent Mr. Collin at that time 
an account of me, which I now have, in which he judges me 
and my abilities quite differently from what I and others had 
heard or could have believed him to say. If I had had any 
knowledge of it, I should have been strengthened : it would 
have made me healthier in mind, and would have acted bene- 
ficially upon my whole being. 

I heard him every day . condemn almost every intellectual 
faculty in me ; he spoke to me as to an idiot, — to a perfectly 
brutish, stupid boy, — and at the same time he wrote earnestly 
about me to my patron Collin, who, on account of my fre- 



THE STOR V OF MY LIFE. 



55 



quent reports of the Rector's dissatisfaction with me and my 
poor abilities, had asked him for a statement 

" H. C. Andersen was, at the close of the year 1822, ad- 
mitted to Slagelse grammar school, and being in want of the 
most necessary preliminary knowledge, in spite of his pretty 
advanced age, was put into the lowest class but one. 

" Endowed by nature with a lively imagination and warm feel- 
ings, he attempted and acquired more or less completely the 
different branches of instruction, and in general made such 
progress, that it entitled him to be promoted successively from 
the lower classes to the highest, to which he at present be- 
longs, only with the difference that he has removed with the 
undersigned from Slagelse to Helsingor. 

" The kindness of others has until now maintained him in his 
course of study, and I cannot refrain from saying that he is 
perfectly worthy. His talents are good, and in one direction 
even excellent • his constant diligence, and his conduct, which 
springs from an affectionate disposition, are such that he might 
serve as a model for the pupils of any school. It may be 
stated further, that, by continuing his praiseworthy assiduity, 
he will, in October, 1828, be able to be promoted to the 
Academy. 

" Three qualities which a preceptor wishes for, but rarely 
finds combined in the same pupil, namely, ability, diligence, 
and excellent conduct, are assuredly to be found in H. C. 
Andersen. 

" In consideration of this, I must recommend him as very 
worthy of any support which may be given to him to enable 
him to continue his course, from which his advanced age will 
not well allow him to retire. Not only the disposition of 
mind, but also his faithful assiduity and undoubted talent, give 
sufficient warrant that what may be bestowed upon him for his 
welfare will never be lost. 

S. Meisling, 
"Ph. Dr., and Rector of Helsingor's grammar-school. 

" Helsingor, July 18, 1826." 

Of this testimony which breathes so much goodness toward 



5 6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

me and which ought to be known, I had no sort of knowledge 
I was entirely depressed, and had neither belief nor confi- 
dence in myself. Collin sent me a few kind lines : — 

" Don't lose courage, my dear Andersen ! Compose your 
mind and be quiet and reasonable ; you will see that all will 
go well ; the Rector bears good-will to you. He takes per- 
haps another way of showing it from what others would, but still 
it leads to the same end. 

" I may write more another time, to-day I am prevented. 

" God bless you ! Yours, 

" Collin." 

The scenery here made a lively impression upon me, but I 
dared only to cast stolen glances at it. When the school 
hours were over, the house-door was commonly locked ; I 
was obliged to remain in the heated school-room and learn 
my Latin, or else play with the children, or sit in my little 
room ; I never went out to visit anybody. My life in this 
family furnishes the most evil dreams to my remembrance. I 
was almost overcome by it, and my prayer to God every even- 
ing was, that He would remove this cup from and let me die. 
I possessed not an atom of confidence in myself. I never men- 
tioned in my letters how hard it went with me, because the 
Rector found his pleasure in making a jest of me, and turning 
my feelings to ridicule. 

My letters to Collin at that period showed a dull and hope- 
less disposition of mind which deeply touched him ; I know 
that from himself, but there was nothing to be done. He pre- 
sumed and might presume that the real pressure was in my 
own mind, and in a nervous over-exertion, and did not come 
from without, as it really did. My mind was very elastic and 
ready to receive every sunbeam, but these only reached me 
the few days once a year in my vacations, when I was allowed 
to go to Copenhagen. 

What a change it was to get for a few days out of the Rec- 
tor's rooms into a house in Copenhagen, where all was ele- 
gance, cleanliness, and full of the comforts of refined life ! 
This was at Admiral Wulffs, whose wife felt for me the kind- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



57 



ness of a mother, and whose children met me with cordiality ; 
they dwelt in a portion of the Castle of Amalienburg, and my 
chamber looked out into the square. I remember the first 
evening there \ Aladdin's words passed through my mind, when 
he looked down from his splendid castle into the square, and 
said, " Here came I as a poor lad." My soul was full of 
gratitude. 

During my whole residence in Slagelse I had scarcely writ- 
ten more than four or fae poems ; two of which, " The 
Soul, " and " To my Mother, " will be found printed in my 
collected works. In my school-days in Helsingor I only 
wrote two poems, " New Year's Night " and " The Dying 
Child ; " the last one was the first of my poems which gained 
attention and acknowledgment and was earliest published and 
translated. I read it to some acquaintance in Copenhagen ; 
some were struck by it, but most of them only remarked my 
Funen dialect, which drops the d in every word. I was com- 
mended by many ; but from the greater number I received a 
lecture on modesty, and that I should not get too great ideas of 
myself — I who really at that time thought nothing of myself. 

One of my kind lady protectors said and wrote to me : 
" For God's sake don't believe that you are a poet because you 
can make verses ! that might grow to a fixed idea. What 
would you say if I had got it into my head that I should be- 
come empress of Brazil ! Would it not be a foolish thought ? 
and so is also your belief that you are a poet ! " But it was not 
at all my thought ; it would however have been a playtime 
in my life, a consolation for me, if I had had such a thought. 

During my stay in Copenhagen I was much blamed for my 
awkward manners, and next to it for always saying straight out 
what I was thinking. 

At the house of Admiral Wulff I saw many men of the 
most distinguished talent, and among them all my mind paid 
the greatest homage to one, — that was the poet Adam 
Oehlenschlager. I heard his praise resound from every 
mouth around me ; I looked up to him with the most pious faith : 
I was happy when one evening, in a large, brilliantly lighted 
drawing-room — where I deeply felt that my apparel was the 
shabbiest there, and for that reason I concealed myself behind 



58 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

the long curtains — Oehlenschlager came to me and offered 
me his hand. I could have fallen before him on my knees. 
We saw each other often in Wulff's house, where also Weyse 
used to come. He spoke very kindly to me and I heard him 
improvise upon the piano. Brdndsted, who had returned to 
Denmark, enlivened it by his eloquence. Wulff himself read 
aloud his translations of Byron. The educated and refined 
gentleman Adler, the friend of Christian VIII., completed 
that social circle, where also the young daughter of Oehlen- 
schlager, Charlotte, surprised me by her joyous, merry hu- 
mor. What excellent days and evenings for me those days 
in Copenhagen were ! 

From such a house as this I, after a few days, returned to 
the Rector, and felt the difference deeply. He also came di- 
rect from Copenhagen, where he had heard it said that I had 
read in company one of my own poems. He looked at me with 
a penetrating glance, and commanded me to bring him the poem, 
when, if he found in it one spark of poetry, he would forgive 
me. I tremblingly brought to him u The Dying Child ; " he 
read it, and pronounced it to be sentimentality and idle trash. 
He gave way freely to his anger. If he had believed that I 
wasted my time in writing verses, or that I was of a nature which 
required a severe treatment, then his intention would have been 
good ; but he could not pretend this. But from this day for- 
ward my situation was more unfortunate than ever ; I suffered 
so severely in my mind that I was very near sinking under it. 
That was the darkest, the most unhappy time in my life. 

Just then one of the masters went to Copenhagen, and re- 
lated to Collin exactly what I had to bear, and immediately he 
removed me from the school and from the Rector's house. 
When, in taking leave of him, I thanked him for the kindness 
which I had received from him, the passionate man cursed me, 
and ended by saying that I should never become a student, 
that my verses would grow mouldy on the floor of the book- 
seller's shop, and that I myself should end my days in a mad- 
house. I trembled to my innermost being, and left him. 

Several years afterward, when my writings were read, when 
the " Improvisatore " first came out, I met him in Copenhagen ; 
he offered me his hand in a conciliatory manner, and said that 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



59 



he had erred respecting me and had treated me wrong ; but 
it now was all the same to me. The heavy, dark days had 
also produced their blessing in my life. 

A young man, who afterward became celebrated in Den- 
mark for his zeal in the Northern languages and in history, 
became my teacher. I hired a little garret ; it is described 
in the " Fiddler ; " and in " The Picture Book without Pic- 
tures " people may see that I often received there visits from 
the moon. I had a certain sum allowed for my support ; but 
as instruction was to be paid for, I had to make savings in 
other ways. A few families through the week-days gave me 
a place at their tables. I was a sort of boarder, as many 
another poor student in Copenhagen is still : there was a 
variety in it ; it gave me an insight into the several kinds of 
family life, which was not without its influence on me. I 
studied industriously ; in some particular branches I had con- 
siderably distinguished myself in Helsingor, especially in 
mathematics ; these were, therefore, now much more left to 
myself: everything tended to assist me in my Greek and Latin 
studies ; in one direction, however, and that the one in which 
it would least have been expected, did my excellent teacher 
find much to do ; namely, in religion. He closely adhered to 
the literal meaning of the Bible ; with this I was acquainted, 
because from my first entrance in the school I had clearly un- 
derstood what was said and taught by it. I received gladly, 
both with feeling and understanding, the doctrine that God 
is love: everything which opposed this — a burning hell, 
therefore, whose fire endured forever — I could not recognize. 
Released from the distressing existence of the school bench, 
I now expressed myself like a free man ; and my teacher, who 
was one of the noblest and most amiable of human beings, 
but who adhered firmly to the letter, was often quite distressed 
about me. We disputed, whilst pure flames kindled within 
our hearts. It was nevertheless good for me that I came to 
this unspoiled, highly-gifted young man, who was possessed of 
a nature as peculiar as my own. 

That which, on the contrary, was an error in me, and which 
became very perceptible, was a pleasure which I had, not in 
jesting with, but in playing with my best feelings, and in re- 



60 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

garding the understanding as the most important thing in the 
world. The Rector had completely mistaken my undisguisedly 
candid and sensitive character • my excitable feelings were 
made ridiculous, and thrown back upon themselves ; and now, 
when I could freely advance upon the way to my object, this 
change showed itself in me. From severe suffering I did not 
rush into libertinism, but into an erroneous endeavor to appear 
other than I was. I ridiculed feeling, and fancied that I had 
quite thrown it aside ; and yet I could be made wretched for 
a whole day, if I met with a sour countenance where I ex- 
pected a friendly one. Every poem which I had formerly 
written with tears, I now parodied, or gave to it a ludicrous 
refrain ; one of which I called " The Lament of the Kitten," 
another, " The Sick Poet." The few poems which I wrote at 
that time were all of a humorous character : a complete 
change had passed over me ; the stunted plant was reset, and 
now began to put forth new shoots. 

WulfTs eldest daughter, a very clever and lively girl, under- 
stood and encouraged the humor, which made itself evident 
in my few poems ; she possessed my entire confidence ; she 
protected me like a good sister, and had great influence over 
me, whilst she awoke in me a feeling for the comic. 

At this time, also, a fresh current of life was sent through 
the Danish literature ; for this the people had an interest, and 
politics played no part in it. 

Heiberg, who had gained the acknowledged reputation of 
a poet by his excellent works, " Psyche " and " Walter the 
Potter," had introduced the vaudeville upon the Danish stage ; 
it was a Danish vaudeville, blood of our blood, and was there- 
fore received with acclamation, and supplanted almost every- 
thing else. Thalia kept carnival on the Danish stage, and 
Heiberg was her secretary. I made his acquaintance first at 
Orsted's. Refined, eloquent, and the hero of the day, he 
pleased me in a high degree : he was most kind to me, and I 
visited him ; he considered one of my humorous poems wor- 
thy of a place in his most excellent weekly paper, "The 
Flying Post." Shortly before I had, after a deal of trouble, 
got my poem of " The Dying Child " printed in a paper ; 
none of the many publishers of journals, who otherwise accept 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. , 6 1 

of the most lamentable trash, had the courage to print a poem 
by a school-boy. My best known poem they printed at that 
time, accompanied by an excuse for it. Heiberg saw it, and 
gave it in his paper an honorable place. Two humorous 
poems signed " H. " were truly my debut with him. 

I remember the first evening when the " Flying Post " ap- 
peared with my verses in it. I was with a family who wished 
me well, but who regarded my poetical talent as quite insig- 
nificant, and who found something to censure in every line. 
The master of the house entered with the " Flying Post " in 
his hand. 

" This evening," said he, " there are two excellent poems : 
they are by Heiberg ■ nobody else could write anything like 
them." And now my poems were received with rapture. 
The daughter, who was in my secret, exclaimed, in her delight, 
that I was the author. They were all struck into silence, and 
were vexed. That wounded me deeply. 

One of our least esteemed writers, but a man of rank, who 
was very hospitable, gave me one day a seat at his table. He 
told me that a new year's gift would come out, and that he 
was applied to for a contribution. I said that a little poem 
of mine, at the wish of the publisher, would appear in the 
same new year's gift. 

"What, then: everybody and anybody are to contribute to 
this book ! " said the man in vexation : " then he will need 
nothing from me ; I certainly can hardly give him anything." 

My teacher dwelt at a considerable distance from me. I 
went to him twice each day, and on the way there my thoughts 
were occupied with my lessons. On my return, however, I 
breathed more freely, and then bright poetical ideas passed 
through my brain, but they were never committed to paper ; 
only five or six humorous poems were written in the course 
of the year, and these disturbed me less when they were laid 
to rest on paper than if they had remained in my mind. 

In September, 1828, I was a student. Oehlenschlager, who 
was Dean at that time, pressed my hand and bid me welcome 
as civis academicus : that was an act of great importance for 
me. I was already twenty-three years old, but still much a 
child in my whole nature and my manner of speaking. A lit- 



62 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

tie incident of these days will perhaps give you an idea of it 
Shortly before the examination day I saw a young man at the 
dinner-table of H. C. Orsted : he looked very embarrassed and 
retiring. I had not seen him there before, and thought that 
he had but just arrived from the country. I asked him with- 
out ceremony, — 

(i Are you going up to the examination this year^? " 
" Yes," he said with a smile, " I am going up there." 
" I also," said I, and spoke now with him as a comrade a 
good deal about this great event. He was the professor who 
was to examine me in mathematics, the richly gifted and ex- 
cellent Von Schmidten, who in his external appearance was 
so much like Napoleon, that in Paris he was taken for him. 
When we met at the examination-table we were both very 
much embarrassed ; he was as kind as he was learned, and 
wished to encourage me, but did not know how to do it ; he 
leaned over to me and whispered, — 

"What is to be the first poetical work you will give us, 
when you have finished your examination ? " 

I gazed with astonishment on him and answered anxiously, — 
" I don't know, sir, but be so kind as not to give me too diffi- 
cult questions in mathematics ! " 

" You know, then, something ? " said he, in a low voice. 
" Yes, sir, I know mathematics tolerably ; in the Helsingor 
school I often read * the supplements ■ with the other scholars, 
and I got the certificate ' remarkably good,' but now I am 
afraid." In that style the professor and the pupil conversed, 
and during the examination, in which he tore all his pens to 
pieces, he did not say anything, but only put one of the pens 
aside to write down the result with. 

When the examination {Examen Artium) was over, the 
ideas and thoughts, by which I was pursued on the way to my 
teacher, flew like a swarm of bees out into the world, and in- 
deed, into my first work, " A Journey on Foot from the Holm 
Canal to the East Point of Amack," — a peculiar, humorous 
book, a kind of fantastic arabesque, but one which fully exhib- 
ited my own individual character at that time, my disposition to 
sport with everything, and to jest in tears over my own feel- 
ings — a fantastic, gayly colored tapestry work was this poet- 
ical improvisation. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 63 

No publisher had the courage to bring out that juvenile 
work. I ventured therefore to do it myself, and in a few days 
after its appearance, the publisher Reitzel bought from me the 
copyright of the second edition, and after a while he had a 
third. In Fahlun, in Sweden, the work was reprinted in Dan- 
ish, a thing which had happened only to the chief works of 
Oehlenschlager. A German translation was some years later 
published in Hamburg. 

Everybody in Copenhagen read my book * I heard nothing 
but praise, only a protector of rank gave me a severe lecture, 
but it struck me as rather comical. The man found in the 
"Journey on Foot " a satire of the Royal Theatre, which he not 
only considered as unseemly but also as ungrateful : unseemly 
because it was a royal, theatre, or, as he said, the king's house ; 
and ungrateful because I had free admission to it. 

This reproof of an otherwise reasonable man, was put out 
of mind by the triumph and praise the book received. I was 
a "student," a poet. I had attained the highest goal of my 
wishes. Heiberg noticed the book in a very kind and beauti- 
ful manner in the " Monthly Journal of Literature/' and had 
earlier given extracts from it in his " Flying Post." The book 
was very much read in Norway, and that vexed Poul Moller, 
so that he criticised it without indulgence. 

I did not know anything of it, and could not believe that 
anybody should not rejoice in the " Journey on Foot to 
Amack." 

The same year about two hundred young men passed as 
" students," and among them were several who made verses, 
and had even got them published ; it was said in jest that 
that year four great and twelve minor poets were made stu- 
dents, and in truth, not counting it too exactly, we could get 
out that number. To the great ones belonged Arnesen, 
whose first vaudeville, " The Intrigue in the People's Theatre," 
was brought on the stage of the Royal Theatre ; F. J. Hansen, 
who at that time published " Readings for the Beau Monde ; " 
Hollard Nielsen ; and last, as the fourth poet, H. C. Andersen. 

Among the twelve small ones was one who, later, unques- 
tionably became one of the great in the Danish literature, — 
"Adam Homo's" poet, Paludan Miiller. He had not yet 



64 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

published anything, and it was only known among his com- 
rades that he made verses. One day I got a letter from him 
in which he proposed that we should publish a weekly paper 
together. 

" You will perhaps be surprised to get such a proposition 
from me, from whom you have not yet seen anything which 
could induce you to suppose me equal to such an enter- 
prise ; yet I believe that I dare assure you with a certain 
kind of self-confidence that I am not the step-child of the 
Muses, as may be tested by the. collection of poems I have 
written for my own pleasure, which are lying in my drawer at 
home." The plan and conditions followed ; there were not to 
be translations or copying from other papers, but only original 
articles, etc. The letter was accompanied by his poem " The 
Smile," as a specimen. I had no fancy at all to be tied down 
to a newspaper, and so the matter was dropped. 

Carl Bagger and I had, before the " Journey on Foot " was 
published, agreed to publish together our poems in one vol- 
ume, but when my book met with so much praise and found 
so many readers, Bagger declared positively that our poems 
could not now go together, because it would be just as if his 
poems had to be brought forward by mine ; the project was 
given up, but not our friendly relation. 

I was received with great consideration by my fellow-stu- 
dents, and I was in a youthful poetical intoxication, in a whirl 
of joy, sporting and searching for the wrong side in everything. 
In this state I wrote in rhyme my first dramatic work, the 
vaudeville, " Love on the Nicholas Tower ; or, What says 
the Pit ? " which had one essential fault, noticed also in the 
" Monthly Journal," " that of satirizing what no longer existed 
amongst us, namely, the Fate tragedies of the Middle Ages." 

My fellow-students received the piece, with acclamation and 
shouted " Long live the author ! " I was overwhelmed with joy, 
and thought it to be of more importance than it deserved. I 
could not contain myself. I rushed out from the theatre into 
the street, and then to Collin's house, where his wife was 
alone at home. I threw myself down upon a chair almost ex- 
hausted and wept in convulsions. The sympathizing lady did 
not know what to think, and trying to console me, said, — 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 65 

" Don't let it grieve you so much. Oehlenschlager has also 
been hissed, and many other great poets." — " They have not 
hissed at all," exclaimed I sobbing : " they have applauded 
and cried Vivat I " 

I was now a happy human being, thinking well of all man- 
kind ; I possessed the courage of a poet and the heart of a 
youth. 

All houses began to be open to me ; I flew from circle to 
circle in happy self-contentment. Under all these external and 
internal affections, I still however devoted myself industriously 
to study, so that without any teacher I passed my second aca- 
demical examination, Exame?i philologicum et fihilosophicum, 
with highest marks. 

A very peculiar scene passed at the examination by H. C. 
Orsted. I had answered all his questions very well, which 
pleased him, and when I had finished he called me back 
again, and said, — "I must ask you still one question more ; " 
and with a bright smile : " Tell me, what do you know about 
electro-magnetism ? " — "I have never heard that word," an- 
swered I. "Think a moment ! you have before answered so 
well, you must also know something of electro-magnetism ! " 

"I have not read anything about it in your chemistry," said 
I with precision. 

" I know it, but I have spoken about it at my lectures ! " 

" I have been at all your lectures but one, and you probably 
spoke of it at that time, for I do not know a single bit of it, — 
not even the name." 

Orsted smiled at that unusual confession, nodded and said,— 
" It is a pity that you did not know it — otherwise I should 
have given you ' prae/ now you can only get ' laud ; ' for the 
rest, you have answered very well." 

Later when I came home to Orsted, I asked him to tell me 
a little about electro-magnetism, and now I heard for the first 
time of it, and of his relation to it. 

Ten years later, when the electro-magnetical thread was ex- 
hibited in the Polytechnic Academy in Copenhagen, I wrote 
an article, at Orsted's express wish, under the signature " Y," 
in the "Copenhagen Post," I believe, about the magnetic 
telegraph which was carried from the front to the back build- 
5 



66 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ing of the Polytechnic Academy. I drew the attention of the 
citizens to that invention, which science owes to a Dane. 

At Christmas I brought out the first collected edition of 
my poems, which met with great praise. I liked to listen to 
the sounding bell of praise. I had such an overflow of youth 
and happiness. Life lay bright with sunshine before me. 



CHAPTER IV. 

UNTIL now I had only seen a small part of my native 
land, — that is to say, a few points in Funen and Zealand, 
as well as Moen's Klint, which last is truly one of our most 
beautiful places ; the beech-woods there hang like a garland 
over the white chalk cliffs, from which a view is obtained far 
over the Baltic. I wished, therefore, in the summer of 1830, 
to devote my first literary proceeds to seeing Jutland, and 
making myself more thoroughly acquainted with my own 
Funen. I had no idea how much solidity of mind I should 
derive from this summer excursion, or what a change was 
about to take place in my inner life. 

It was especially the heaths of Jutland that I rejoiced to see, 
and if possible I wanted to meet some gypsy family there. 
My interest had been excited by stories I had heard, and by 
the novels of Steen Blicher. The country was then not so 
much visited as it is now. 

Steam-navigation had just been established ; a bad, slow- 
sailing ship called " Dania " made the voyage in about twenty- 
four hours, — an unheard of quick passage at that time. 

The steamships had not yet come to be believed in. The 
year before I made a passage in such a ship, — " Caledonia," 
the first steamboat seen in our waters ; all the seamen ridi- 
culed it and nicknamed it " Puddle-Malene." 

H. C. Orsted was of course full of delight over this world- 
renowned invention, and it was very amusing to hear at a dinner 
where I was present, an old sailor, a relation of Mr. Orsted, 
who sat near him, arguing against these " smoke-ships." 

" From the creation of the world," said he. " till this time, we 
have been satisfied with reasonable ships driven by wind, but 
now they are trying to make something better ; as often as one 
of those i smoke-caps ' is passing, I cannot forbear taking my 
speaking-trumpet and scolding at it as long as it can hear 



68 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

me." It was a great event to go in a steamboat at that time, 
and it sounds almost incredible nowadays, when steamships 
are such every-day matters, that we think of their invention as 
something very remote ; to hear it said that Napoleon, when 
he took refuge with the English, saw for the first time a steam- 
boat in motion. 

A whole night in the Kattegat, on board this new kind of 
ship, made a deep impression on my fancy. We had rough 
weather indeed, and I was sea-sick ; it was only the next day 
in the evening that we reached Aarhuus. There, and in all 
the small towns of Jutland, my " Journey on Foot " was well 
known, as were also my humorous poems, and I was kindly 
received. I drove over the heath, where all was novel ; but 
it was bad weather, and having very light travelling clothes, 
the damp, chilly sea-wind affected me so severely that I was 
obliged to change my route from Viborg, where I stopped a 
few days, going southeast and giving up entirely the west coast ; 
that did not prevent me, however, from writing " Fancies by 
the Western Sea," and " Pictures of the West Coast of Jutland," 
which I never had seen, but only knew by others' verbal de- 
scriptions. 

I saw now the country all round Skanderborg, Veile, and 
Kolding, and from there I went to Funen, enjoying the coun- 
try-house life, and was received as a dear guest several weeks 
at the country seat " Maryhill," near the canal by Odense : the 
widow of the printer Iversen was my hostess. 

This spot was in my earliest youth my ideal of a country- 
house. The little garden was plentifully supplied with in- 
scriptions and verses, which told you what you were to think 
and feel at each place. Near the canal, where the ships 
passed, was built a little battery, mounted with wooden can- 
non ; there was also a watch-house and a sentry-box with a 
wooden soldier, all most childishly beautiful. 

Here I lived with this intelligent, kind old woman, who was 
surrounded by a troop of bewitching, lovely grandchildren, 
all young girls. The oldest of these, Henriette, published at 
a later period two novels, " Aunt Anna," and " The Daughter 
of an Authoress." 

The weeks passed with merriment and joy. I wrote a couple 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 69 

of humorous poems, among which was "The Heart Thief," 
and occupied myself with a romance, " The Dwarf of Chris- 
tian 11./' for which I obtained some historical studies from 
the learned antiquary Vedel-Simonsen, of Elvedgaard, near 
Bogense. I went through about sixteen written sheets, which 
I read to Ingemann who seemed to like them. I may attribute 
to them the favorable recommendation he gave me when I 
offered my travelling petition. 

Poems sprung forth upon paper, but of the comic fewer and 
fewer. Sentiment, which I had so often derided, would now 
be avenged. I arrived, in the course of my journey, at the 
house of a rich family in a small city ; and here suddenly a 
new world opened before me, — an immense world, which yet 
could be contained in four lines, which I wrote at that time : — 

A pair of dark eyes fixed my sight ; 
They were my world, my home, my delight ; 
The soul beamed in them, and childlike peace, 
And never on earth will their memory cease. 

New plans of life occupied me. I would give up writing 
poetry, — to what could it lead ? I would study theology, and 
become a preacher ; I had only one thought, and that was she. 
But it was self-delusion : she loved another ; she married 
him. It was not till several years later that I felt and ac- 
knowledged that it was best, both for her and for myself, that 
things had fallen out as they had. She had no idea, perhaps, 
how deep my feeling for her had been, or what an influence it 
produced in me. She had become the excellent wife of a 
good man, and a happy mother. God's blessing rest upon 
her! 

In my " Journey on Foot," and in most of my writings, sat- 
ire had been the prevailing characteristic. This displeased 
many people, who thought that this bent of mind could lead 
to no good purpose. The critics now blamed me precisely 
for that which a far deeper feeling had expelled from my 
breast. A new collection of poetry, " Fancies and Sketches," 
which was published for the new year, showed satisfactorily 
what my heart suffered. A paraphrase of the history of my 
own heart appeared in a serious vaudeville, " Parting and Meet- 
ing," with this difference only, that here the love was mutual : 
the piece was not presented on the st^ge till five years later. 



70 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Among my young friends in Copenhagen at that time was 
Orla Lehmann, who afterwards rose higher in popular favor, 
on account of his political efforts, than any man in Denmark. 
Full of animation, eloquent and undaunted, his character of 
mind was one which interested me also. The German lan- 
guage was much studied at his father's ; they had received 
there Heine's poems, and these were very attractive for young 
Orla. He lived in the country, in the neighborhood of the 
castle of Fredricksberg. I went there to see him, and he sang 
as I came one of Heine's verses, "Thalatta, Thalatta, du 
eviges Meer." We read Heine together ; the afternoon and 
the evening passed, and I was obliged to remain there all 
night ; but I had on this evening made the acquaintance of a 
poet, who, as it seemed to me, sang from the soul ; he sup- 
planted Hoffman, who, as might be seen by my " Journey on 
Foot," had formerly had the greatest influence on me. In 
my youth there were only three authors who as it were infused 
themselves into my blood, — Walter Scott, Hoffman, and 
Heine. 

I betrayed more and more in my writings an unhealthy turn 
of mind. T felt an inclination to seek for the melancholy in 
life, and to linger on the dark side of things ; I became sensi- 
tive, and thought rather of the blame than of the praise which 
was lavished on me. My late school education, which was 
forced, and my impulse to become an author whilst I was yet 
a student, make it evident that my first work, the " Journey 
on Foot," was not without grammatical errors. Had I only 
paid some one to correct the proofs, which was a work I was 
unaccustomed to, then no charge of this kind could have been 
brought against me. Now, on the contrary, people laughed at 
these errors, and dwelt upon them, passing over carelessly that 
in the book which had merit. I know people who only read 
my poems to find out errors ; they noted down, for instance, 
how often I used the word beautiful, or some similar word. 
A gentleman, now a clergyman, at that time a writer of vaude- 
villes and a critic, was not ashamed, in a company where I 
was, to go through several of my poems in this style ; so that 
a little girl of six years old, who heard with amazement that 
he discovered everything to be wrong, took the book, and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



71 



pointing out the conjunction and, said, " There is yet a little 
word about which you have not scolded." He felt what a 
reproof lay in the remark of the child ; he looked ashamed 
and kissed the little one. All this wounded me ; but I had, 
since my school-days, become somewhat timid, and that caused 
me to take it all quietly : I was morbidly sensitive, and I was 
good-natured to a fault. Everybody knew it, and some were 
on that account almost cruel to me. Everybody wished to 
teach me ; almost everybody said that I was spoiled by praise, 
and therefore they would speak the truth to me. Thus I 
heard continually of my faults, the real and the ideal weak- 
nesses. In the mean time, however, my feelings burst forth • 
and then I said that I would become a poet whom they should 
see honored. But this was regarded only as the crowning 
mark of the most unbearable vanity ; and from house to house 
it was repeated. I was a good man, they said, but one of the 
vainest in existence ; and in that very time I was often ready 
wholly to despair of my abilities, and had, as in the darkest 
days of my school-life, a feeling as if my whole talents were a 
self-deception. I almost believed so ; but it was more than I 
could bear, to hear the same thing said, sternly and jeeringly, 
by others ; and if I then uttered a proud, an inconsiderate 
word, it was addressed to the scourge with which I was smit- 
ten ; and when those who smite are those we love^ then do the 
scourges become scorpions. 

For this reason Collin thought that I should make a little 
journey, in order to divert my mind and furnish me with 
new ideas. I had by industry and frugality laid aside a little 
sum of money, so that I resolved to spend a couple of weeks 
in North Germany. 

In the spring of 183 1, I left Denmark for the first time. I 
saw Liibeck and Hamburg. Everything astonished me and 
occupied my mind. There were as yet no railways here ; the 
broad, deep, and sandy route passed over the heaths of Lu- 
nenburg, which looked as I had read of them in the admired 
f< Labyrinth " of Baggesen. 

I arrived at Braunschweig. I saw mountains for the first 
time, — the Hartzgebirge — and went on foot from Goslar 
over the Brocken to Halle. 



72 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

The world expanded so astonishingly before me my good 
humor returned to me as to the bird of passage, but sorrow is 
the flock of sparrows, which remains behind and builds in the 
nests of the birds of passage. 

In the book at the summit of the Brocken, where so many 
travellers write down their names, thoughts, and sentiments, I 
also wrote down mine in a little verse : — 

Above the clouds I stand here, 

Yet must my heart confess 
That nearer far to heaven I was 

When I her hand could press. 

Next year a friend told me that he had seen my verse, 
when he visited the Brocken, and a countryman had written 
below, " Poor little Andersen, save your verses for Elmquist's 
1 Reading book/ and trouble us not with them abroad, where 
they never find their way except when you come and write 
them down." 

In Dresden I made acquaintance with Tieck. Ingemann 
had given me a letter to him. I heard him one evening read 
aloud one of Shakespeare's plays. On taking leave of him, he 
wished me a poet's success, embraced and kissed me ; which 
made the deepest impression upon me. The expression of his 
eyes I shall never forget. I left him with tears, and prayed 
most fervently to God for strength to enable me to pursue 
the way after which my whole soul strove — strength, which 
should enable me to express that which I felt in my soul ; and 
that when I next saw Tieck, I might be known and valued 
by him. It was not until several years afterward, when my 
later works were translated into German, and well received 
in his country, that we saw each other again ; I felt the true 
hand-pressure of him who had given to me, in my second 
father-land, the kiss of consecration. 

In Berlin, a letter of Orsted's procured me the acquaint- 
ance of Chamisso. That grave man, with his long locks and 
honest eyes, opened the door to me himself, read the letter, and 
I know not how it was, but we understood each other immedi- 
ately. I felt perfect confidence in him, and told him so, though 
it was in bad German. Chamisso understood Danish ; I gave 
hiro my poems, and he was the first who translated any of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 73 

them, and thus introduced me into Germany. It was thus he 
spoke of me at that time in the " Morgenblatt : " " Gifted with 
wit, fancy, and humor, and a national naivete, Andersen has still 
in his power tones which awaken deeper echoes. He under- 
stands, in particular, how with perfect ease, by a few slight but 
graphic touches, to call into existence little pictures and land- 
scapes, but which are often so peculiarly local as not to inter- 
est those who are unfamiliar with the home of the poet. Per- 
haps that which may be translated from him, or which is so 
already, may be the least calculated to give a proper idea of 
him." 

Chamisso became a life-long friend to me. The pleasure 
which he had in my later writings may be seen by the printed 
letters addressed to me in the collected edition of his works. 

The little journey in Germany had great influence upon me, 
as my Copenhagen friends acknowledged. The impressions 
of the journey were immediately written down, and I gave 
them forth under the title of " Shadow Pictures." Whether I 
were actually improved or not, there still prevailed at home 
the same petty pleasure in dragging out my faults, the same 
perpetual schooling of me ; and I was weak enough to endure 
it from those who were officious meddlers. I seldom made a 
joke of it ; but if I did so, it was called arrogance and vanity, 
and it was asserted that I never would listen to rational peo- 
ple. Such an instructor once asked me whether I wrote Dog 
with a little d; — he had found such an error of the press in 
my last work. I replied, jestingly, " Yes, because I here spoke 
of a little dog." 

But these are small troubles, people will say. Yes, but 
they are drops which wear hollows in the rock. I speak of it 
here ; I feel a necessity to do so ; here to protest against the 
accusation of vanity, which, since no other error can be dis- 
covered in my private life, is seized upon, and even now is 
thrown at me like an old medal. 

I willingly read for everybody whom I visited what I lately 
had written that pleased me. I had not yet learned by 
experience how seldom an author ought to do this, at least 
in this country. Any gentleman or lady who can hammer 
on a piano or sing a few songs, has no hesitation, in whatever 



74 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

company they may enter, to carry their music-book with them 
and place themselves before the piano ; it is but very seldom 
that any remark is made on that ; an author may read aloud 
others' poetical works but not his own — that is vanity. 

That has been said many times about Oehlenschlager, who 
was always willing to read his works in the different circles 
where he went, and read them very beautifully too. How 
many remarks I have heard about it from people who seemed 
to think that they made themselves interesting thereby, or 
showed their superiority to the poet : if they allowed them- 
selves to do thus toward Oehlenschlager, how much further 
could they not then go toward Andersen ? 

Sometimes my good humor lifted me above the bitterness 
that surrounded me ; I discovered weakness in others as well 
as in myself. In such a moment I brought forth my little 
poem, " Snik-snak," 1 which was printed, and I was made the 
subject of many verses and poems in papers and periodicals. 
A lady whom I used to visit sent for me, and catechised me 
to know " if I ever visited houses where this poem had any 
appropriateness ; she did not believe that it had anything 
to do with the company that met at her house, but as I 
was a guest there, people would imagine that her house 
was the place I had aimed at," and then she gave me a good 
lecture. 

In the vestibule of the theatre one evening a well-dressed 
lady, unknown to me, came up very near me, and with an ex- 
pression of indignation looked me in the face and said, " Snik- 
snak." I took off my hat : politeness does for an answer ! 

From the end of the year 1828, to the beginning of 1839, I 
maintained myself alone by my writings. It was difficult for 
me to pull through, — doubly difficult, because my dress must 
in some measure accord with the circles into which I went. 
To produce, and always to be producing, was destructive, nay 
impossible. I translated a few pieces for the theatre, — " La 
Quarantaine," and " La Reine de seize ans," — and wrote the 
text for a couple of operas. 

Through the writings of Hoffmann my attention had been 
turned to the masked comedies of Gozzi, and finding among 
1 A popular expression for senseless gabble and chatter. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



75 



these " II Corvo " to be an excellent subject for an opera text, 
I read Meisling's translation of it, became quite enraptured, 
and in a few weeks I wrote my opera text of " The Raven." 

I gave it to a young composer, almost unknown at that 
time, but a man of talent and spirit, a grandson of him who 
composed the Danish folk's-song of " King Christian stood by 
the tall, tall mast." My young composer was the present 
Professor J. P. E. Hartmann. 

It will sound strange to the ears of many, when I say that I 
at that time, in my letter to the theatrical directors, recom- 
mended him and gave my word for his being a man of talent, 
who would produce something good. He now takes rank 
among the first of living Danish composers. 

My text to " The Raven " is without freshness and melody, 
and I have not inserted it in my collected writings ; only a 
chorus and a song are introduced among the poems. 

I worked up also Walter Scott's " Bride of Lammermoor " 
for another young composer, Breda 1. Both operas appeared 
on the stage ; but I was subjected to the most merciless crit- 
icism, as one who had stultified the labors of foreign poets. 
I have a reminiscence of Oehlenschlager at that time which 
not only displays his irritability, but also, in a high degree, his 
thoroughly noble nature. 

The " Bride of Lammermoor " had appeared on the stage 
and was received with acclamation. I took the printed text 
to Oehlenschlager, who smiled and congratulated me on the 
great applause I had received, but said that it was easy for me 
to obtain it, as I had taken from Walter Scott, and had been 
assisted by the composer. It grieved me much to hear him 
say so, and tears came into my eyes ; when he saw that he 
embraced and kissed me, and said : " Other people are making 
me cross too ! " and now he was heartiness itself, presented me 
with one of his books, and wrote his and my name in it. 

The composer Weyse, my earliest benefactor, whom I have 
already mentioned, was, on the contrary, satisfied in the highest 
degree with my treatment of these subjects. He told me that 
he had wished for a long time to compose an opera from 
Walter Scott's " Kenilworth." He now requested me to 
commence the joint work, and write the text. I had no idea 



76 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

of the summary justice which would be dealt to me. I needed 
money to live, and, what still more determined me to it, I felt 
flattered to have to work with Weyse, our most celebrated 
composer. It delighted me that he, who had first spoken in 
my favor at Siboni's house, now, as artist, sought a noble 
connection with me. I had scarcely half finished the text, 
when I was already blamed for having made use of a well- 
known romance. I wished to give it up ; but Weyse consoled 
me, and encouraged me to proceed. Afterward, before he 
had finished the music, when I was about to travel abroad, I 
committed my fate, as regarded the text, entirely to his hands. 
He wrote whole verses of it, and the altered conclusion is 
wholly his own. It was a peculiarity of that singular man 
that he liked no book which ended sorrowfully. Amy Robsart, 
in " Kenilworth," must marry Leicester. " Why make them 
unhappy, when one with only a few pen-strokes can make 
them happy ! " said he. " But it is not historical/' replied I. 
" What shall we then do with Queen Elizabeth ? " — " She may 
say : ' Proud England, I am thine ! ' " answered he. I yielded, 
and let him finish the opera with these words. 

" Kenilworth " was brought on the stage, but was not printed, 
with the exception of the songs ; two of which have become 
very well known through the music. To this followed anony- 
mous attacks : the city post brought me letters in which the 
unknown writers scoffed at and derided me. That same year 
I published a new collection of poetry, " The Twelve Months 
of the Year ; " and this book, though it was afterward pro- 
nounced to contain the greater part of my best lyrical poems, 
was then condemned as bad. 

At that time " The Monthly Review of Literature," though 
it has now gone to its grave, was in its full bloom. At its first 
appearance, it numbered among its co-workers some of the 
most distinguished nanies. Its want, however, was men who 
were qualified to speak ably on aesthetic works. Unfortunately, 
everybody fancies himself able to give an opinion upon these ; 
but people may write excellently on surgery or pedagogical 
science, and may have a name in those things, and yet be 
dolts in poetry : of this proofs may be seen. By degrees it 
became more and more difficult for the critical bench to find 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. J J 

a judge for poetical works. The one, however, who, through 
his extraordinary zeal for writing and speaking, was ready at 
hand, was the historian and states-councilor Molbech, who 
played, in our time, so great a part in the history of Danish 
criticism that I must speak of him rather more fully. He is 
an industrious collector, writes extremely correct Danish, and 
his Danish dictionary, let him be reproached with whatever 
want he may, is a most highly useful work ; but, as a judge of 
aesthetic works, he is one-sided, and even fanatically devoted 
to party spirit. He belongs, unfortunately, to the men of 
science, who are only one sixty-fourth of a poet, and who are 
the most incompetent judges of aesthetics. He has, for ex- 
ample, by his critiques on Ingemann's romances, shown how 
far he is below the poetry which he censures. He has him- 
self published a volume of poems, which belong to the common 
run of books, — "A Ramble through Denmark," written in the 
fade, flowery style of those times, and " A Journey through 
Germany, France, and Italy," which seems to be made up out 
of books, not out of life. He sat in his study, or in the Royal 
Library, where he has a post, when suddenly he became 
director of the theatre and censor of the pieces sent in. He 
was sickly, one-sided in judgment, and irritable : people may 
imagine the result. He spoke of my first poems very favor- 
ably ; but my star soon sank for another, who was in the as- 
cendant, — a young lyrical poet, Paludan Miiller • and, as he no 
longer loved, he hated me. That is the short history ; indeed 
in the selfsame " Monthly Review " the very poems which had 
formerly been praised were now condemned by the same judge, 
when they appeared in a new enlarged edition. There is a 
Danish proverb, " When the carriage drags, everybody pushes 
behind;" and I proved the truth of it now. People spoke 
only of my faults, and it certainly is human nature under such 
circumstances to feel badly. I showed this to my would-be 
friends, and from them it was told about the great city, which 
often ought rather to be called the little city. Even well- 
dressed people, passing me in the streets, made wry faces at 
me and threw out scoffing remarks. 

The Danes are great mockers, or, to use a more polite ex- 
pression, they have a great sense of the ludicrous, and that is 
the reason there are so many comedy poets among them. 



78 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

It happened that a new star in Danish literature ascended 
at this time. Henrik Hertz published his " Letters' from 
the Dead " anonymously : it was a mode of driving all the un- 
clean things out of the temple. The deceased Baggesen sent 
polemical letters from Paradise, which resembled in the high- 
est degree the style of that author. They contained a sort 
of apotheosis of Heiberg, and in part attacks upon Oehlen- 
schlager and Hauch. The old story about my orthographical 
errors was again revived ; my name and my school-days in 
Slagelse were brought into connection with St. Anders. I was 
ridiculed, or, if people will, I was chastised. 

Hertz's book went through all Denmark ; people spoke of 
nothing but him. It made it still more piquant that the au- 
thor of the work could not be discovered, People were en- 
raptured, and justly. Heiberg, in his " Flying Post, " de- 
fended a few aesthetical insignificants, but not me. 

To be scofnngly exposed in a public journal had then quite 
another side to it than now, when so many share the same fate. 
The predecessor of " The Corsair," " The Rocket," published 
by Mathias Winther, was then truly a kind of pillory, which 
gave a kind of importance to that side of the victim that was 
opposite the public, who then believed everything that got 
into print. There was only one, the student Drejer, under 
the ficticious name " Davieno," who supported me. He was 
a brother of the botanist, both now deceased, a very gifted 
man whose poems and biography are published, but not his 
more considerable poem, " A Versified Letter to Count Zea- 
landsfar," which he wrote in my defense. 

I could not say anything : I could only let the big heavy sea 
roll over me, and it was the common opinion that I was to be 
totally washed away. I felt deeply the wound of the sharp 
knife, and was upon the point of giving myself up, as I now 
already was given up by all others. There existed no other 
Allah than the author of " The Letters from the Dead," and 
Heiberg was his Prophet. I however, in a short time, pub- 
lished a little book, " Vignettes to the Poets," in which I char- 
acterized the dead and the living authors in a few lines each, 
but only spoke of that which was good in them. A little verse 
to me was printed in " The Day." It was signed " Count of Fu- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



79 



nen." People jibed at the new admirer and poet I had found, 
but they would not have done so if they had known that the 
author was the honorable old gentleman Mr. Wegener, director 
of the seminary for teachers at Jonstrup and publisher of the 
" House Friend." He was widely esteemed and honored. 
The book excited attention ; it was regarded as one of the 
best of my works ; it was imitated, but the critics did not 
meddle with it. It was evident, on this occasion, as had al- 
ready been the case, that the critics never laid hands on those 
of my works which were the most successful. 

My affairs were now in their worst condition ; and precisely 
in that same year in which a stipend for travelling had been 
conferred upon Hertz, I also had presented a petition for the 
same purpose. I looked up to King Frederic VI. with true 
reverence and heartfelt gratitude. I had grown up with these 
feelings, and I felt a strong desire to give them expression. I 
could not do it in any other way than by presenting him a 
book, which he had allowed me to dedicate to him, "The 
Twelve Months of the Year." 

A man, who meant well by me and was acquainted with what 
needed to be done, told me that I ought, in order to take proper 
measures to receive a stipend for travelling, to tell the King 
when I presented him my book, shortly and clearly who I 
was ; that since becoming a student I had made my way with- 
out any support ; and that travel would, more than anything 
else, serve to complete my education ; then the King 
would probably answer, that I could bring him a petition, 
which I was to have by me and thereupon hand to him. I 
thought it monstrous that at the same moment when I 
presented him my book I should ask him a favor ! " That 
is the way," said he ; " the King is very well aware that you 
give him the book in order to ask for something ! " This 
made me almost desperate, but he said, "That is the only 
way to do it," and I did it. My audience must have been 
very comical indeed ; my heart was beating with fear, and 
when the King, in his peculiar manner, stepped abruptly to- 
ward me and asked what book I brought him, I answered, — 
" A cycle of poems ! " 

" A cycle, cycle — what do you mean ? " Then I became 
quite disconcerted and said, — 



80 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

u It is some verses to Denmark ! " He smiled : — 

" Well, well, it is very good, thank you ! " and so he nodded 
and dismissed me. But as I had not yet begun on my real 
errand, I told him that I had still something more to say to 
him ; and now, without hesitation, I told him about my studies 
and how I had gone through them. " That is very praise- 
worthy," said the King ; and when I reached the point of a 
stipend for travelling, he answered, as I had been told he 
would : " Well, send me your petition ! " 

" Yes, sire ! exclaimed I in all simplicity. u I have it 
with me! but it seems to me so dreadful, that I should 
bring it along with the book ; they have told me that I 
ought to do so, that it was the right way, but I find it so 
dreadful : it is not like me!" — and tears rushed from my 
eyes. The good King laughed heartily, nodded in a friendly 
fashion, and took the petition. I made a bow and ran away at 
full speed. 

The universal opinion was that I had reached the point 
of culmination, and if I was to succeed in travelling, it 
must be at this present time. I felt, what since then has 
become an acknowledged fact, that travelling would be the 
best school for me. In the mean time I. was told that, to 
bring it under .consideration, I must endeavor to obtain from 
the most distinguished poets and men of science a kind of rec- 
ommendation, because this very year there were so many dis- 
tinguished young men who were soliciting a stipend, that it 
would be difficult among these to put in an available claim. 
I therefore obtained recommendations for myself; and I am, 
so far as I know, the only Danish poet who was obliged to 
produce recommendations to prove that he was a poet. And 
here also it is remarkable, that trie men who recommended 
me have each one made prominent some very different quali- 
fication which gave me a claim : for instance, Oehlenschlager, 
my lyrical power, and the earnestness that was in me ; Inge- 
mann, my skill in depicting popular life ; Heiberg declared 
that since the days of Wessel, no Danish poet had possessed 
so much humor as myself; Orsted remarked, every one — they 
who were against me as well as those who were for me — agreed 
on one subject, and this was that I was a true poet. Thiele 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 8 1 

expressed himself warmly and enthusiastically about the 
power which he had seen in me, combating against the oppres- 
sion and the misery of life. I received a stipend for travel- 
ling — Hertz a larger and 1 a smaller one: and that also 
was quite in the order of things. 

" Now be happy," said my friends, " make yourself aware 
of your unbounded good fortune ! Enjoy the present mo- 
ment, as it will probably be the only time in which you will 
get abroad. You shall hear what people say about you while 
you are travelling, and how we shall defend you ; sometimes, 
however, we shall not be able to do that." 

It was painful to me to hear such things said ; I felt a com- 
pulsion of soul to be away, that I might, if possible, breathe 
freely ; but sorrow is firmly seated on the horse of the rider. 
More than one sorrow oppressed my heart, and although I 
opened the chambers of my heart to the world, one or two of 
them I kept locked, nevertheless. On setting out on my jour- 
ney, my prayer to God was that I might die far away from 
Denmark, or else return strengthened for activity, and in a 
condition to produce works which should win for me and my 
beloved ones joy and honor. 

Precisely at the moment of setting out on my journey, the 
forms of those I loved arose in my heart. Among the few whom 
I have already named, there are two who exercised a great in- 
fluence upon my life and my poetry, and these I must more 
particularly mention. A beloved mother ; an unusually lib- 
eral-minded and well educated lady, Madame Lassbe, had in- 
troduced me into her agreeable circle of friends ; she often 
felt the deepest sympathy with me in my troubles ; she always 
turned my attention to the beautiful in nature and the poet- 
ical in the details of life, and as almost every one regarded me 
as a poet, she elevated my mind ; yes, and if there be tender- 
ness and purity in anything which I have written, they are 
among those things for which I have especially to be thankful 
to her. Another character of great importance to me was 
Collin's son Edward. Brought up under fortunate circum- 
stances of life, he was possessed of that courage and determi- 
nation which I wanted. I felt that he sincerely loved me, and 
I, full of affection, threw myself upon him with my whole soul ; 
6 



82 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

he passed on calmly and practically through the business of 
life. I often mistook him at the very moment when he felt 
for me most deeply, and when he would gladly have infused 
into me a portion of his own character, — to me, who was as a 
reed shaken by the wind. It was pleasure and happiness to 
me to recite either my own or others' poems. In a family cir- 
cle, where I was present with my young friend, I was asked to 
recite, and I was ready to do it, but — knowing better than I 
just what the company meant, and that I was in their eyes 
nothing more than an object of ridicule — he came up to me, 
and said that if I recited a single piece he would go away ! 
I was dejected, and the hostess and the ladies overwhelmed 
me with reproaches. It was only afterward that I saw things 
from his point of view and understood how, with his knowl- 
edge of the moment, he was my honest friend ; then it caused 
me tears, although I had the fullest confidence that he felt 
deeply for my interest. In the practical part of life, he, the 
younger, stood actively by my side, from the assistance which 
he gave in my Latin exercises, to the arranging the business 
of bringing out editions of my works. He has always re- 
mained the same ; and were I to enumerate my friends, he 
would be placed by me as the first on the list. When the 
traveller leaves the mountains behind him, then for the first 
time he sees them in their true form : so is it also with friends. 

A little album of verses from many whose names were illus- 
trious, was my little treasure ; it accompanied me on all my 
travels, and has since increased and become of very great 
value to me. 

I left Copenhagen Monday, 22d April, 1833. I saw the 
steeples of the city dissolving from my view — we approached 
the promontory of Moen ; then the Captain brought me a letter 
and said jokingly : " It came just now down through the air." 
It was a few words more, an affectionate farewell from Edward 
Collin. Off Falster another letter from another friend. At 
bed-time a third, and early in the morning near Travemiinde 
a fourth — all " through the air ! " said the Captain. My 
friends had kindly and sympathetically filled his pockets with 
letters for me. 



CHAPTER V. 

IN Hamburg lived the poet Lars Kruse, author of the trag 
edies, — " Ezzelin," " The Widow," "The Monastery," 
which I have seen performed at the Royal Theatre ; his novel, 
" Seven Years/' was much read ; the " Musenalmanach " of 
Germany every year made a great show of his stories. Now 
he is there as here almost entirely forgotten. He was an 
amiable, well-meaning man, of a good-natured, fleshy appear- 
ance ; he spoke to me of his love for his country, and wrote 
down in my album a little verse. 

That was the first poetical greeting I received in a foreign 
country, and therefore it was fixed in my memory. The next 
lively impression of travel was formed in Cassel, upon seeing 
a name in half-effaced letters on a street-corner, — the name 
of Napoleon, for whom the street or place had been named. 
That made a greater impression on me than all the glory of 
" Wilhelmshohe," with its artificial ruins and fountains. Na- 
poleon was the hero of my youth and my heart. 

In Cassel I saw for the first time Spohr, and was received 
very kindly by him. He asked me many questions concern- 
ing music in Denmark and its composers. He knew some- 
thing of Weyse's and Kuhlau's compositions. 

A little theme of " The Raven," which Hartmann had writ- 
ten down in my album, captivated him much, and I know that 
several years afterward he commenced a correspondence with 
Hartmann, and made an attempt, yet without success, to put 
" The Raven " on the stage at Cassel. He spoke of his own 
works, and asked me which of them were given at the theatre 
of Copenhagen, and I was obliged to answer " None at all," 
and must still say so. 

His opera, " Zemire and Azor," seemed to be his best, and 
was also so regarded by himself. He had a slight acquaint- 
ance with Danish literature, and knew something of Baggesen, 
Oehlenschlasfer and Krnse. 



84 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Thorwaldsen had his highest admiration. I was touched 
at taking leave of him, for I thought that I was bidding fare- 
well forever to a man, who by his works will be admired 
through generations. I did not think that we should meet 
each other again, and yet it happened many years afterward 
at London, where we met as old friends. 

Nowadays we travel speedily through Germany to Paris, 
but it was not so in 1833. Then there were no railways, and 
we crept slowly forward, stowed away night and day in heavy, 
clumsy stage-coaches. After all that prose of travel, it was 
for me a kind of poetry to reach Frankfurt, Goethe's native 
town — the home in childhood, too, of the Rothschilds, where 
the rich mother of powerful men would not leave the little 
house in the Jew Quarter, where she had borne and brought up 
her rich and happy sons. The Gothic old gable-ended houses, 
the city hall of the Middle Ages, formed a page of pictures for 
me. 

The composer Aloys Schmitt, known by his opera " Valeria," 
was the first abroad who asked me to write him an opera text. 
My smaller poems, which were translated by Chamisso, had 
shown him, as he expressed it, that I was the poet he wanted. 

I saw the Rhine ! Its banks appear least favorable at spring- 
time, the vines looking meanly, as they rise toward the castle 
ruins. I had imagined it all much more grand. What I saw 
was below my expectation, -and I think that I am not alone in 
that opinion \ the most beautiful point is undeniably Loreley, 
near St. Goar. The banks of the river Danube are more ro- 
mantic, even the Rhone has points which surpass those of the 
Rhine. The traditions are the chief attractions of the Rhine. 
Tales and songs — those charming songs, which the German 
poets have sung to the honor of that mighty sea-green stream 
— are its highest beauty. 

From the Rhine we continued our journey for three nights 
and days over Saarbruck, through the chalk district of Cham- 
pagne, to Paris. I looked eagerly toward this " city of cities," 
as I then called it, and asked so many times if we should not 
soon be there that at last I stopped asking, and so we passed 
the very Boulevards even before I knew that we had reached 
that mighty city. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 85 

All my travelling impressions on my way from Copenhagen 
to Paris are presented in what I have here written, and but 
very little was I able to get hold of on this rapid passage. 
Still there were people at home who already expected to see 
something from me ; they did not consider that if even the cur- 
tain is raised the play is not immediately seen or clearly con- 
ceived. 

I was now in Paris, but fatigued and sleepy. I descended 
at the Hotel de Lille, Rue Thomas, near the Palais Royal. To 
go to bed and get a good sleep was the best thing for me, but 
I had not slept long before I w r as awakened by a dreadful 
noise ; it was light all around. I started to the window ; op- 
posite, in the narrow street, was a large building. I looked 
through the windows : a crowd of people rushed down the 
stairs, crying and bellowing ; there was a great rush and rum- 
ble and flashing, and I, being still half asleep, thought of 
course that all Paris was in a revolution. I rang the bell and 
asked the waiter what the matter was. " C'est le tonnerre ! " 
said he : " Le tonnerre ! " said the maid ; and seeing that I did 
not understand them, they rolled with the tongue, " Tonnerre- 
re-rrre ! " showing me how the thunderbolt beats down, and 
meanwhile it lightened and rumbled. It was the thunder, and 
the house opposite was the Vaudeville Theatre, where the 
play was just finished and people were rushing down-stairs ; 
that was my first awakening in Paris. 

Now I was to see its grandeurs. The Italian opera was al- 
ready closed, but the great opera was ablaze with brilliant 
stars. Madame Damoreau and Adolph Nourrit were singing. 
Nourrit was then in his full vigor, and was the favorite of the 
Parisians. I heard him, who had fought so bravely, and at 
the barricades had with his whole soul sung patriotic songs, 
exciting the enthusiasm of the fighters, and all was joy and ju- 
bilation. Four years more and I heard of his despair and 
death. 

He went to Naples in 1837. His reception there was not 
what he expected \ even a hiss was heard, and that agitated 
much the singer who always had been admired. Once more, 
though sick at heart, he appeared in " Norma ; " one hiss was 
again heard, in spite of the stormy applause of all the rest. 



86 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Nourrit was deeply wounded ; he was up the whole night, and 
in the morning, the 8th of March, he precipitated himself from 
a window in the third story. His widow and six children 
were left to mourn him. 

It was in his splendor and happiness, when living in a jubi- 
lee of admiration, that I heard him in Paris as Gustavus the 
Third. This opera was admired by all. The widow of the 
real Ankarstrom lived here and was an old woman ; she pub- 
lished a card in one of the best known journals, saying that 
the relations which Scribe had placed King Gustavus in, to her, 
were totally false, and that she had only seen the King once. 

I saw the tragedy " Les Enfants d'Edouard," in the Theatre 
Francais ; old Mademoiselle Mars played the part of the 
young sons' mother, and though I understood the French lan- 
guage very little, her acting made everything comprehensible 
to me ; a more beautiful voice in a woman I never have 
heard before nor since. When I was first living in Copen- 
hagen the renowned Miss Astrup appeared on the Danish 
stage, and was admired by the Copenhagen public for her un- 
dying youthfulness ! I saw her as she appeared with feelings 
of piety in the tragedy " Selim, Prince of Algeria," where 
she acted the mother ; but for me she was an old, laced maid, 
stiff as a pin, with an unpleasant gaggling voice ; of her acting 
I could not judge. In Mademoiselle Mars in Paris I saw the 
true youthfulness, which did not consist in stays and struttings ; 
in her were youthful movements, a musical voice, and I could 
understand without being told that she was a true artist ! 

There were several of us Danes together that summer 
in Paris ; we all lived in the same hotel, and went in com- 
pany together to restaurants, cafes, and theatres. Our own 
home-tongue was always spoken, letters were read by each 
other, views of home received and talked over, and at last we 
hardly knew whether we were in a foreign land or our own. 

Everything was seen and had to be seen, for it was on this 
account we had come abroad. I remember that one of our 
dear friends one morning returning from museums and palaces 
almost exhausted, said : " I cannot help it, they must be seen ; 
for when I go home again I shall be ashamed to be asked 
and have to confess that I had not seen this or that ; there 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 87 

only remain a few places, and when they are done, I shall have 
a real good time ! " This was the common talk, and will prob- 
ably very often be repeated. I went out in company with 
the others and saw and saw, but most of it has long since 
been effaced from my memory. 

The magnificent Versailles with its rich saloons and large 
paintings gave place in my mind to the Trianon. I entered 
Napoleon's bed-room with pious feelings ; all was there in the 
same state as when he lived : the walls had yellow tapestry 
and the bed yellow curtains ; a pair of stairs led up to the 
bed ; I put my hand on one of the steps which had been 
touched by his foot, and on his pillow. If I had been alone I 
should surely have knelt down. Napoleon was indeed the 
hero of my youth and also of my father. I looked up to 
him as the Catholic to his saint. I visited the little farm in 
the garden of Trianon, where Marie Antoinette, dressed as 
a peasant-girl, managed the dairy and all pertaining to it. I 
jjiucked a honeysuckle which climbed up to the window of 
the unfortunate Queen's room ; a little daisy, in all its sim- 
plicity, was in contrast preserved in memory of the mighty 
Versailles. 

I saw, or rather I spoke, with few celebrities in Paris ; one 
of those, to whom I was introduced by a letter from the 
Danish ballet-master, Bournonville, was the vaudeville-poet, 
Paul Duport. His drama, " The Quaker and the Dancer," 
has been performed at our theatre, and was very well executed. 
The old man was much pleased to hear this information, and 
received me very kindly. A very comical scene, however, 
soon took place between us. I spoke French but poorly ; he 
thought that he could speak German, but he pronounced it 
s^ that I could not understand him at all. He took a German 
dictionary, placed it on his lap and looked continually for 
words, but to speak by help of a dictionary is a very slow 
practice and suited neither a Frenchman nor me. 

Another visit was to Cherubini, to whom I was, to speak 
properly, sent on an errand from Weyse. Many will still re- 
member how poor an appreciation the ingenious Weyse got 
at home for his opera compositions, and .yet among these 
were the melodious works, " The Narcotic Potion " and " The 



88 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Grotto of Ludlam." He lived and composed exclusively foi 
us, but could never get into fashion. Only as composer of 
church music did he make his mark, and his "Ambrosian 
Hymn of Praise " was especially admired. It was that hymn 
I was charged by him to carry to Cherubini, the immortal com- 
poser of " The Two Days," and the master of so many excel- 
lent requiems. At this very time the attention of the Parisian 
public was attracted to him. He had then, after a long rest 
and in his old age, composed a new work for the great opera, 
" Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves." It had no success, but was 
received with affectionate homage. 

I went to Cherubini ; the old man looked like the pictures 
I had seen of him \ he sat before his piano and had a cat 
upon each shoulder. He had never heard of Weyse, not even 
of his name, and asked me of the music I brought him. The 
only Danish composer he knew was Claus Schall, who has 
composed the music for the ballets of Galeotti. Weyse never 
heard from Cherubini, and I never saw him again. 

One day I entered " Europe Litteraire," a kind of Parisian 
" Athenaeum," where Paul Duport had introduced me. A lit- 
tle man of Jewish cast came toward me. " I hear you are 
a Dane," said he ; " I am a German : Danes and Germans are 
brothers, therefore I offer you my hand ! " 

I asked for his name, and he said : " Heinrich Heine ! " 
the poet whom, in my recent young erotic period of life, I had 
admired so much, and who had so entirely expressed my 
thoughts and feelings in his songs. There was no man I 
could have wished more to see and meet with than he, and so 
I told him. 

" Only phrases ! " said he smiling ; " if I had interested you 
as much as you tell me, you should have sought me out be- 
fore ! " 

" I could not," replied I ; " you have so much sense of the 
ludicrous, that you might have thought it absurd in me, who 
am a Danish poet entirely unknown to you, to seek you. I 
know also that I should have behaved very awkwardly toward 
you, and if you had then laughed at me, or perhaps quizzed 
me, I should have, been deeply wounded, for the very reason 
that I estimate you so highly • so I should rather have missed 
seeing you at all." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 89 

My words made a good impression on him, and he was very 
kind and amiable. The next day he returned my visit in 
Hotel Vivienne, where I lived. We met each other often, 
and sometimes we promenaded together on the Boulevard, 
but I did not then place full confidence in him, and I did 
not feel that hearty attraction which several years afterward 
I felt when we met again in Paris, and he had read my " Im- 
provisator " and some of my small stories. On my departure 
from Paris to Italy he wrote to me : — 

" I should have wished, my dear colleague, to scribble some 
verses to you, but to-day I can hardly write tolerably in prose. 
Farewell ! I wish you a pleasant sojourn in Italy. Learn Ger- 
man well in Germany, and when you return to Denmark write 
down in German what you have seen and felt in Italy. That 
would make me very happy. 

" H. Heine. 

"Paris, August 10, 1833." 

The first French book I tried to read in Paris was Victor 
Hugo's novel, "Notre Dame." I used daily to visit the 
cathedral and look upon the scenes depicted in that poet- 
ical work. I was captivated by those stirring pictures and 
dramatic characters, and what could I do better than go 
and see the poet, who lived in a corner-house in the Place 
Roy ale. They were old-fashioned rooms, hung with engrav- 
ings, wood-cuts, and paintings of Notre Dame. He received 
me in his bed-gown, drawers, and elegant morning boots. 
Taking leave of him, I asked him for his name on a piece of 
paper ; he complied with my wishes, and wrote his name close 
up to the edge of the paper. I felt very badly, for it came im- 
mediately to my mind that he did this because he did not 
know me, and was cautious that no place should be left for 
me to write above his name. At a later stay in Paris I came 
to know the poet better. 

During my journey to Paris, and the whole of the first 
month I spent there, I heard not a single word from home. 
I asked for letters at the post-office, but in vain. Could my 
friends, perhaps, have nothing agreeable to tell me ? Could 



90 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

it be that I still was envied the travelling stipend which the 
recommendations of so many had procured me ? I was much 
depressed. At length, however, a letter arrived, — a large un- 
paid one, which cost a large sum in postage, but then it was 
such a splendid great one. My heart beat with joy and yearn- 
ing impatience to read it ; it was, indeed, my first letter from 
home. I opened it, but I discovered not a single written 
word, nothing but a printed newspaper, — " The Copenhagen 
Post," of Monday, May 13, 1833, containing a lampoon upon 
me 1 and that was sent to me all that distance with postage 
unpaid, probably by the anonymous writer himself. 

That was to be my first greeting from home. This abom- 
inable malice wounded me deeply. I have never discovered 
who the author was ; the verses betrayed a practiced pen ; 
perhaps he was one of those who afterwards called me 
" friend " and pressed my hand. Men have base thoughts ; 
I also have mine. 

I remained in Paris till the July festivals were over ; they 
were then in their first freshness, and I saw on one of the days 
the unveiling of Napoleon's pillar at the Place Vendome. 

The evening before, while the workmen were at work, the 
statue still covered, and people gathered in crowds on the 
place, a strange-looking, lean old woman came toward me, and 
with laughter and an expression of insanity said to me, " There 
they have placed him j to-morrow, perhaps, they take him down 
again. Ha, ha, ha ! I know the French people ! " I went 
away with sad thoughts. 

The following day I had a seat upon a high scaffold at the 
corner of the place. I gazed on Louis Philippe, with his sons 
and generals. The " garde nationale " passed with music and 
with bouquets of flowers stuck in the gun-barrels ; people 
shouted Hurra ! but also " A bas les forts " was heard. 

In the Hotel de Ville was a people's ball in splendid style ; 
all classes came together, from the royal family to the fish- 
women. The crowd was so dense that Louis Philippe and his 
queen reached the seats arranged for them with considera- 
ble difficulty. It made a sad impression on me to hear the 
orchestra play the dance-music of the opera "Gustavus the 
Third," when the royal family entered. I looked to see in the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 9 1 

face of Queen Amelie an impression similar to what I felt : 
she was deadly pale and clung tightly to Louis Philippe, who 
with a jovial smile saluted all and shook hands with several 
persons. 

I saw the Due d'Orleans^ young and full of vigor, dancing 
with a poorly dressed young girl, — probably one of the lowest 
classes. 

This feast and gayety continued through several days ; in 
the evenings funereal flambeaux burned upon the graves of the 
fallen citizens, which were adorned with wreaths of everlast- 
ings ; tournaments in boats were held in the Seine ; Danish 
sports in fine style were seen in Champs d'Elysees. All the 
theatres in Paris were open to the public, even in the middle 
of the day, and representations were given with open doors ; 
everybody could come and go as they liked. Sometimes the 
people interrupted the performance of tragedies and operas, 
and began to sing '"La Parisienne " and " Allons Enfants." 
In the evenings rockets and fire-works flashed and cracked in 
the air, and there were brilliant illuminations of churches and 
public buildings. 

Thus ended my first visit to Paris, and the finale could not 
have been more grand and festive. 

As to my French, I had not improved much in the nearly 
three months I spent here. It is a weakness of the Danes 
that they here live together, — exclusively together, and I had 
given way to the same weakness. I felt a necessity to learn 
a little more of that language, and therefore determined to 
board for a while in some quiet place in Switzerland so as 
to be compelled to speak French \ but I was told that such 
a stay would be very expensive for me. 

" If you would condescend to visit a little city up in the Jura 
Mountains, where it snows even in August, you would there 
find a cheap place and many friends too," said a Swiss to me, 
with whom I had made acquaintance through his family in 
Copenhagen. After Paris and all its pleasures, a stay in those 
solitary mountains would be very refreshing to me. I wished 
there in quiet to finish a poem, which now occupied my 
thoughts. The plan for the journey was laid, and the route 
fixed by Geneva and Lausanne to the little city of Le Locle, 
in the Jura Mountains. 



92 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



Among my compatriots in Paris were two who belonged to 
Denmark's renowned men, both of whom had received me 
very kindly. One of them was the author of the " Vons and 
Vans," and the " Laterna Magica," the poet Peter Andreas 
Heiberg, who at a period, so different from ours, was exiled 
from Denmark, and had chosen Paris for his new home ; 
his life is well known to all Danes. I sought him out ; he 
lived in one of the smaller hotels, and was an aged and almost 
blind man. 

His son, John Ludvig Heiberg, our present director of the 
theatre, had then recently married Johanne Louise, Denmark's, 
and, I am bold to say, one of the world's most honored and 
estimated actresses of the age. It greatly interested the old 
Heiberg to hear of her, but I understood that he still held to 
his old fashioned, or perhaps Parisian opinions, regarding 
scenic artists. 

He did not like it that his son's wife should be governed by 
the theatre director, whom he considered to be a kind of a 
tyrant ; meanwhile he was glad to hear from me, and, as he 
said, from all the Danes, that she was such a respectable girl, 
endowed with real talent. It is a pity that he never himself 
learned to know her talent, her important place on the Danish 
stage, and her noble character. He seemed to feel very deso- 
late, and it was pitiful to behold the half-blind man feeling 
his way along through the well-known arcades of the Palais 
Royal. At my departure he wrote in my album : — 

" Receive a blind man's friendly farewell ! 

" P. A. Heiberg. 
" Paris August io, 1833." 

The other famous Dane who favored me was the counselor 
of state Brondsted, with whom I became acquainted at the 
house of Admiral Wulff; he came from London, where he had 
read my book, " The Twelve Months of the Year." He had 
not before read anything of mine ; my verses pleased him, he 
became interested in me, and was my intellectual guide and 
good friend. Some days before I left Paris he sent me, one 
morning, a poem he had written. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



93 



For several days and nights I now travelled, squeezed in 
dusty diligences. The small adventures of a travelling life 
were served up for me, and I have kept some of them in 
remembrance and will here give you one. 

We had left the flat plains of France and reached the Jura 
Mountains ; here in a little village, late in the evening, the 
conductor helped two young farmer's daughters to get into the 
diligence, where I was the only passenger. 

" If we do not let them drive with us they will be obliged 
to walk two hours on a desert road," said the conductor; they 
whispered and tittered together ; they knew that a gentleman 
was in the coach, but could not see me : at last they took 
courage and asked me if I was a Frenchman, and learning 
that I was from Denmark, they made me believe that they 
knew that country. They recollected from the geography that 
Denmark was the same as Norway. Copenhagen they could 
not pronounce, but always said " Corporal," and so forth. 

They asked me whether I was young, and married, and how 
I looked. I kept quiet in a dark corner, and gave them as 
ideal a description as I could ; they understood the sport, and 
when in turn I asked them of their appearance, they made 
themselves out to me real beauties. 

They urged me to show my face when we arrived at the 
next station ; I would not yield to their wishes, and so they 
covered their faces with their handkerchiefs and alighted, and, 
laughing merrily, held out their hands to me \ they were young 
and had very beautiful figures. Those two unknown, invis- 
ible, gay girls represented a laughing image of my travelling 
life. 

The road led along deep precipices ; the peasants' houses 
down in the valleys were like playthings, and the forests like 
potato-fields \ suddenly a view opened between two rocks — 
to me it seemed like misty forms or swimming, aerial moun- 
tains. It was the Alps with Mont Blanc, which I now beheld 
for the first time. The road passed downward always along 
the precipice ; it was as if we were lowered down through 
the air. All was seen as in a bird's-eye view. A thick smoke 
ascended fron* far below ; I thought it was a coal-mine, but 
it was a cloud ascending toward us, and when it reached us 



94 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



we beheld before us Geneva with its lake, the whole Alpine 
range, — the lowest parts in a blue mist, the highest mountain- 
forms sharp and dark, and the glaciers glittering in the sun. 
It was a Sunday morning • a holy religious feeling filled my 
breast in this grand church of nature. 

I knew that old Purari with his family was living in Geneva. 
He came as an emigrant to Copenhagen and stayed there for 
several years ; Danes were always well received by him. I 
asked a man in the street for Purari's house ; he proved to be 
one of his friends, and accompanied me immediately to those 
kind-hearted folks. The daughters spoke Danish ; our con- 
versation turned on Denmark, Henrik Hertz, who had been 
Purari's scholar, and of the great success and renown " Let- 
ters from the Dead " had excited at home. Purari told of his 
stay in Copenhagen, where he carried on a hardware trade 
and gave instructions in French, and spoke of Louis Philippe's 
stay there at the house of the merchant De Coninck, under 
the name of Mr. Miiller, on a voyage to North Cape as a 
botanist. Purari was one day invited to dine with him at the 
palace ; no waiters were present, Louis Philippe arranging 
himself all that belonged to the table. 

The Alps appeared to lie so near the town that I wished to 
take a morning walk up to them \ but it was as if the moun- 
tains kept retiring. I walked and walked ; it was noon before 
I reached the foot of the first rock, and evening before I came 
back to Geneva. 

Past Lausanne and Vevay I reached Chillon, — the old, 
picturesque castle, which had so much excited my interest 
before by Byron's poem of " The Prisoner of Chillon." The 
whole country made an impression on me as if I were in the 
South, although the mountains of Savoy before me glittered 
with snow ; but below by the deep green lake, where the 
castle was situated, vine and corn fields stretched ; stout old 
chestnut-trees cast a shade and bent their branches in rich 
abundance over the water. I walked over the draw-bridge 
into the darksome yard of the castle ; I perceived some small 
apertures in the wall, from w 7 hich in former times they poured 
hot oil and water over the assailants. # 

In the chambers of the castle were trap-doors, which, when 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



95 



stepped upon, whipped round, and the poor victims were pre- 
cipitated down into the deep sea or were spitted on iron nails, 
fastened in the rock below. In the cellars were rusting the 
iron rings to which the prisoners' chains had been fastened ; 
a flat stone had served as couch. On one of the pillars Byron 
had, in 1826, carved his name. The woman, who was my 
guide, told me that she did not know him, and had tried 
to hinder him from doing it, but in vain ; and now every 
one looks on those letters, for " it was such an extraordinary 
person, that gentleman," said she, and nodded very signifi- 
cantly. 

From Chillon commenced the ascent of the Jura Mountains, 
always higher and higher up, until I reached my new home 
the watch-making city Le Locle. 

This little city is situated in a valley of the Jura Mountains, 
where in former ages the sea had been, and petrifactions of 
fishes were still to be seen. Often the clouds floated below 
us, and there was a repose and stillness among the dark pine- 
trees, the grass was freshly green, and round about glittered the 
juicy violet- colored crocus. The peasants' houses were white 
and clean, and each of them was stocked with watches. The 
bilberry bushes with their red clusters recalled me the pictures 
in an A B C book, and the berries were beautifully red and 
reminded me of my home. 

Le Locle is a pretty important town, and here I found 
a blessed home in an amiable family of a wealthy watch-maker, 
the family Houriet ; the man was a brother-in-law of our de- 
ceased, skillful Urban Jurgensen. I was received like a dear 
relation, and they would not hear a word about payment. " It 
is an invitation," said the man and wife ; they pressed my 
hands and I became good friends with all, and with the chil- 
dren too. 

There were two old aunts in the house, Rosalie and Lydia, 
and it was a good exercise for me to talk to them in French 
of Denmark, and of their dear sister, whom they had not seen 
since she went away, quite young, with her husband. They 
spoke only French and did not understand other languages, 
and though I spoke it but very poorly they understood me 
well, and I them. 



96 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Although it was August they made fire in my stove every 
morning and evening ; some days it snowed, but I knew that 
below the Jura Mountains it was still warm and delicious sum- 
mer weather. I was only two hours distant from it. In the 
evenings, in that elevated region, there was a solemn repose 
in nature, and the sound of the evening-bells ascended to us 
from the French frontier beyond the river. At some distance 
from the city stood a solitary house, painted white and clean. 
On descending through two cellars, the noise of a mill-wheel 
was heard, and the rushing waters of a river which flowed 
on, hidden here from the world. I often visited this place 
and the beautiful Doub-fall some distance off. In my novel 
" O. T." I have described the scenery and the recollections of 
my stay in Le Locle. 

Political agitation had also found its way to this little city 
high up on the mountains and shut in by forests, — this home 
of my repose. The canton of Neufchatel belongs to Prussia, 
and from being good neighbors, the Prussian party and the 
Swiss party among the peasants opposed each other, shunned 
each other, and each sang their own songs. Sometimes it 
came to small railleries. I heard from a genuine Switzer, who 
had in his bedroom a framed picture of William Tell shooting 
the apple off his son's head, that one of the Prussian party 
had destroyed it by pressing his elbow against the glass, and 
thus spoiled the engraving : " He did it on purpose ! " said he. 
All those political clouds passed lightly over me. I lived a 
happy family life and was a dear guest. I got a far better 
insight into the domestic life and the customs and manners 
of the country than travellers generally do. 

Besides this I was occupied in writing a new poem. Dur- 
ing my journey from home, and while staying in Paris, the 
idea of a poem fixed itself firmer and firmer in my mind, 
and I hoped, as it became more clearly worked out, to pro- 
pitiate my enemies by it, and get their recognition as being a 
true poet. The old Danish folk-song of " Agnete and the 
Merman" was the subject I meant to treat. 

In Paris I wrote the first part of it, and in Le Locle I fin- 
ished my poem and sent it home. I accompanied it with pref- 
atory remarks, which I should not now write as I then did, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



97 



nor should I treat the subject of Agnete as then. The pref- 
ace is very characteristic of me at that time : — 

" Even as a child, the old story of ' Agnete and the 
Merman/ representing the double world, the earth and the 
sea, took hold of me. When grown up I beheld in it a great 
image of life, with the never satisfied desire of the heart, and 
its strange longing after another new existence. It had long 
been my thought to express what so occupied my soul. The 
old song from my home resounded in my ear in the midst of 
the excitement of Paris ; it went with me on the gay Boulevard 
and among the treasures of art at the Louvre. The whole 
grew out of my heart before I was aware of it myself. 

" Far from Paris, high up in the Jura Mountains, in a north- 
ern clime, among dark forests of pines silent as death, is 
Agnete's birthplace, but it is Danish in soul and mind. I send 
my dear child to my father-land, where it belongs. Receive 
her kindly ; she brings my greetings to all of you. 

iC As abroad all Danes become friends and brothers, so she 
also goes toward kindred and friends. Snow falls at my 
window, heavy winter clouds hover over the forest, but below 
the mountain are summer, grapes and corn. To-morrow I 
journey over the Alps to Italy ; perhaps there I shall dream 
a beautiful dream, which I then will send to my dear Denmark, 
for the son must tell the mother his dreams. Farewell ! 

" H. C. Andersen. 

"Le Locle, in the Jura Mountains, 14 September, 1S33.' 8 

My poem reached Copenhagen, and was printed and sold. 
They sneered at the passage in the preface of "Agnete " : u The 
whole grew out of my heart before I was aware of it." It was 
coldly received, and people said that I had done it in imi- 
tation of Oehlenschlager, who at one time used to send 
home masterpieces. At the same time that " Agnete " was 
published, Paludan Miiller published also his poem " Amor 
and Psyche," which captivated every one. 

By comparison with this the weakness in my book was 
felt the more. It was noticed in the " Monthly Review of Lit- 
erature," but not praised. The poem did not produce the effect 



9-8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

on H. C. Orsted that I expected ; in a long and very amiable 
letter, dated March 8, 1834, which I received in Italy, he 
spoke freely and justly of my poem, and many years after- 
ward I was ready to acknowledge that he was right. 

My poem, " Agnete," with all its faults, was, however, a step 
forward ; my purely subjective poetical nature tried here to 
display itself objectively. I was in a transition period, and 
this poem closed my pure lyrical phasis. It has been also of 
late critically said in Denmark, that notwithstanding the fact 
that on its first appearance it excited far less attention than 
some of my earlier and less successful works, yet in it the 
poetry is of a deeper, fuller, and more powerful character than 
any which I had hitherto produced. 

The producing it on the stage in a shorter form and with 
some alterations was an experiment aimed at attracting a 
large audience to a summer performance ; it was given twice, 
but I was abroad then also. Notwithstanding Mrs. Heiberg 
played the part of Agnete very genially and touchingly, and 
that Nils Gade had composed pretty music for the single 
songs and choruses, it could not be kept up. " Agnete " was 
sent home ; she was for me a beautiful statue seen only by me 
and God ! Hope and dreaming clung closely to this poem, 
which took its way northward. The following day I set out 
for the South, for Italy, where a new portion of my life was to 
begin. 

At my departure from those dear people in Le Locle the 
children wept. We had become friends, although I could not 
understand their patois : they shouted loudly into my ear, be- 
cause they fancied I must be deaf, as I could not understand 
them. Even the servants wept and squeezed my hands. The 
old aunts had knit woolen cuffs to wear on the cold passage 
over the Simplon. 

" Agnete " and my stay in Le Locle close one portion of 
my poetical life. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ON the 5th of September, 1833, I crossed the Simplon on 
my way to Italy. On the very day on which, fourteen 
years before, I had arrived poor and helpless in Copenhagen, 
did I set foot in this country of my longing and of my poet- 
ical happiness. 

What grandeur of nature ! Our heavily laden coach with 
its team of horses was like a fly on a gigantic block 5 we crept 
along the rocky road which, at Napoleon's command, had 
broken through this spine of the earth \ the glass-green gla- 
ciers shone over us ; it grew colder and colder 5 the shepherds 
were wrapped in cowhides, and the inns kept up good fires 
in their stoves ; it was full winter here, but in a few minutes 
the coach was rolling along under chestnut-trees, whose long 
and green leaves glittered in the warm sunshine. Domo 
d'Ossola's market-places and streets gave us in miniature a 
picture of the national street-life. 

Lago Maggiore shone between the dark-blue mountains ; 
beautiful islets, like bouquets, floated upon the water : but it 
was cloudy ; the skies were gray, as in Denmark. When even- 
ing came, all was again whiffed away \ the air shone trans- 
parent and serene, and the skies seemed to float thrice as high 
as at home. The vines hung in long trails along the road, as 
for a feast. Never since have I seen Italy so beautiful. 

The Cathedral of Milan was the first work of art I beheld 
in Italy. I climbed the marble-rock that art has hollowed out 
and formed into arches, towers, and statues, rising in the clear 
moonlight, and had there a view of the Alps with their gla- 
ciers, and of the whole green, fertile Lombard country. Porta 
Sempione, called by the people after Napoleon's name, was 
still in course of erection. In La Scala were given operas 
and ballets; all was visited and seen, but the cathedral of 



IOO THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

Milan, was, however, the place where the heart was elevated in 
devotional tranquillity by listening to the beautiful church 
music. 

I left this magnificent city in company with two country- 
men ; our vetturino carried us through the country of the 
Lombards, which was as flat as our green islands at home, 
and as fertile and beautiful as they. The rich maize-fields, 
the beautiful weeping-willows, were new to us. The moun- 
tains we passed seemed, however, insignificant after seeing 
the Alps. At last we got a view of Genoa, and also of the sea, 
which I had not seen since I left Denmark. The Danes feel 
the same affection for the sea as the mountaineers .feel for 
their mountains. From my balcony I could look out over 
that new, yet familiar, dark-blue, level stretch. 

In the evening I went to the theatre in the main street, the 
only large street in Genoa. As a great public building, I 
thought it must be very easy to find, but it was not so \ one pal- 
ace more magnificent than the other lay side by side ; at last a 
huge marble Apollo, shining white as snow, showed me where 
the place was. 

A new opera was presented for the first time : it was 
Donizetti's " Elisire d'Amore ; " after that was given a comic 
ballet, " II Flauto Magico." The sound of the flute compelled 
all to dance ; at last even the supreme council itself and all 
the old pictures on the walls of the city hall, — an idea I 
have later applied in the comedy " Ole Lukoie." 

A written permit of the Admiralty got us admission into 
the Arsenal, where the galley-slaves, then about six hundred 
in number, lived and worked. 

We visited the inner prisons, the dormitory with large barrack 
beds along the walls, furnished with iron chains, to which the 
prisoners were attached when they went to bed. Even in the 
sick-rooms some of the prisoners were chained to their beds. 

Three agonizing prisoners with livid faces and bursting eyes 
made a dreadful impression on me. They observed my 
emotion, and one of the prisoners looked at me with a sinister 
look. I understood him. I was here only out of curiosity to 
see their sufferings. He burst out into a coarse laugh, half 
rising up in the bed, and fixing his evil eyes diabolically upon 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. IOI 

me. Here, loaded down with chains, lay a blind old man with 
silvery hair. 

In the yard were different working-rooms \ several of the 
galley-slaves were chained together, two and two. I saw one 
prisoner, dressed of course as the others, in white pantaloons 
and red shirt, but the stuff was finer \ he was young and with- 
out chains. They told us that he was a man from the city, 
who had done a large business, but had stolen enormous 
sums and otherwise cheated the city \ now he was sentenced 
to stay two years in the galleys : he did not work, nor was he 
in irons during the day, but in the night he was locked in 
together with the others, and like them chained to the bed. 
His wife frequently sent him money ; he lived sumptuously 
within these walls ; but what was that when he was always with 
these criminals, and in the night chained with them and forced 
to listen to their ribaldry and wickedness ? 

The first day's journey from Genoa along the shore south- 
ward is one of the finest journeys one can make. Genoa is 
situated on the slopes of the mountains and surrounded by 
green olive woods. Oranges and pomegranates hung in the 
gardens ; grass-green, shining lemons heralded the spring ; 
while the inhabitants of northern countries now were looking 
for winter. 

One picture of beauty followed another ; all was new and 
ever memorable to me. I still see the old bridges covered 
with ivy, and the Capuchins and crowds of Genoese fisher- 
men with their red caps. 

The whole sea-coast with its beautiful villas, and the sea 
white with sailors and steamers, produced a grand effect. 
Later I discovered far away bluish mountains : they were those 
of Corsica, the cradle of Napoleon. 

At the foot of an old tower, under a large shady tree, sat 
three old women, with long silvery hair falling over their brown 
shoulders, spinning on distaffs. Huge aloes grew at the road- 
side. 

The reproach will perhaps be cast at me, in relating the 
story of my life, that I dwell too long on Nature in Italy, and 
perhaps, not without reason, may apprehend that the ac- 
count of my travels will come to abound in descriptions ; but 



102 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

it will soon be seen that I was more occupied with persons 
whom I met than with things. On the other hand, nature and 
art were most prominent in my mind during this first visit to 
Italy. 

What a fascinating evening I spent in Sestri di Levante ! 
The inn lies near the sea, which sends its waves in great rollers 
over the beach. The sky was brilliant with fiery red clouds, 
the mountains changing with new colors. The trees were like 
great fruit-baskets, filled to overflowing with heavy grapes from 
the creeping vines. Suddenly the scene changed as we went 
higher up the mountains. All was then dry and ugly for a long 
while. It was as if fancy, forming Italy into a wonderfully beau- 
tiful garden, had thrown away upon this spot all its weeds. 
The few scattered trees were without leaves ; here were 
neither rocks nor mould, only mud, gravel, and quarry stones ; 
and again, as if by enchantment, all was lying in a Hesperian 
loveliness. The Bay of Spezzia we saw before us. 

Bewitching blue mountains overhung a most fertile and 
beautiful valley, which was as an overflowing horn of plenty ; 
the grapes hung heavy and juicy around the shady trees ; 
oranges and olives mingled their branches with them, and the 
vine drooped luxuriantly in long trails from tree to tree. 
Black, shining swine, without bristles, sprang about like goats, 
and made the donkeys kick even when ridden by a Capuchin 
with his huge green umbrella. 

We reached Carrara on the birthday of the Duke of Mo- 
dena ; the houses were hung with garlands, the soldiers had 
stuck myrtle-branches in their caps, and the cannon thun- 
dered. But it was the marble quarries we wished to see ; they 
lie outside of the city ; a clear stream near the road slipped 
over the shining snow-white marble stones. 

The quarry was of white and gray marble, containing crys- 
tals. It seemed to me as if it were a bewitched mountain, 
where the gods and goddesses of antiquity were bound in the 
stones, and now were waiting some mighty magician — a Thor- 
waldsen or a Canova — who 'could set them free and give them 
to the world. 

Notwithstanding all the novelty and the beauty of nature, 
I and my travelling companions very often had the spirit of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



IO3 



Nicholas toward Italy, the mode of travelling was so entirely 
different from what we ever had known : the eternal cheatings 
at the inns ; they were continually asking for our passports, 
which were examined and signed more than fifteen times in a 
few days ; our vetturino did not know the way, we got lost, 
and instead of reaching Pisa in the day-time, we arrived there 
in the middle of the night. After being searched and annoyed 
we drove through the dark streets, which were without lan- 
terns 1 the only light we had was a big burning candle which 
our driver had bought at the city gate, and which he now held 
before him. At last we reached our destination, u Albergo del 
Ussaro." " One day like Jeppe we lie on a dung-hill, the next 
in the castle of the baron," I wrote home, and here was the 
baron's castle. 

We were in want of rest, in want of a real dolce far niente, 
before we could begin to see the curiosities of the city, the 
Church, the Baptistery, Campo Santo, and the Leaning Tower. 

Our theatre painter usually represents Campo Santo in the 
scene of the monastery hall in " Robert le Diable." In the 
archway there stood monuments and bass-reliefs, — one of 
those by Thorwaldsen, representing " Tobias's Recovery," and 
the artist has portrayed himself as the young Tobias. The 
Leaning Tower was not very inviting to ascend, yet we 
mounted its stairs. It is a cylinder surrounded by pillars ; 
there are no rails at the top of it. The side which turns 
to the sea, under the effect of the sea-winds, is in a state of 
dilapidation. The iron has crumbled, the stones have lost 
their solidity, and all has a dirty yellow color. I could look 
from here over a level country as far as Leghorn, which now 
can be reached in a short time by the railway ; but at that 
time there was no railway, and we were obliged to go with a 
vetturino. He was but a poor guide, who did not know any- 
thing, and would show us nothing that we cared to know about. 

" There," he said, " lives a Turkish merchant, but his shop 
is closed to-day ; there is a church with beautiful pictures, but 
they are now taken away ; that man who just passed is one of 
our richest merchants ;" and everything he told us was about 
as interesting as that. Then he carried us to the synagogue, 
" the most beautiful and rich in Europe \ " it made anything 



104 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

but a religious impression upon us. The interior was like an 
exchange-hall, and the unusual sight of worshippers with hats 
on, and speaking to each other in a high key, was very unpleas- 
ant. Filthy Jewish children stood upon the chairs ; some old 
Rabbis were grinning from a kind of pulpit and enjoying them- 
selves with some old Hebrews. Up by the tabernacle they 
pushed and elbowed each other, and there was a general crowd- 
ing and cuffing. There seemed to be no thought of devotion, 
and there could not well be either. Overhead on a large gal- 
lery the women were almost hidden behind a close frame. 

The most beautiful sight I saw in Leghorn was a sunset ; 
the clouds glittered like flame ; the sea shone, the mountains 
shone ; it was like a frame around this filthy city, — a decora- 
tion which gave it Italian splendor. Soon, however, this splen- 
dor was turned into the magnificence of art, for we had come 
to Florence. 

I had never had an eye for sculpture ; I had seen almost 
nothing at home ; in Paris I had certainly seen many statues, 
but my eyes were closed to them ; but here when visiting the 
magnificent galleries, the rich churches with their monuments 
and magnificence, I learned to understand the beauty of 
form — the spirit which reveals itself in form. Before the 
" Venus de Medici " it was as if the marble eye had acquired 
the power of sight ; a new world of art revealed itself to me, 
and I could not escape from it. 

I visited the galleries daily, and a new world was opened to 
me. I went oftenest to the Church of Santo Croce with its 
magnificent marble monuments. Sculpture, Painting, and 
Architecture sit personified around the coffin of Michel 
Angelo. The corpse of Dante is kept in Ravenna, but Santo 
Croce possesses his monument ; Italia points at the poet's 
colossal statue, while Poetry mourns over his sarcophagus. 
There is a monument to Alfieri here, from the hands of 
Canova, adorned with a mask, a lyre, and a crown of laurel. 
The tombs of Galileo and of Machiavel are not so noticeable, 
but the places are no less sacred. 

One day three of us fellow-countrymen went in search of a 
fourth, the engraver Sonne, and arriving at the quarter where 
we were told he lived, we were talking loudly with each other, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



I05 



when a man in shirt-sleeves and apron came up to us and 
asked us in Danish, " Gentlemen, for whom are you looking ? ,; 
He was a locksmith from Copenhagen, who had settled here, 
married a French girl, and had been away from Denmark nine 
years. He told us his history, and we in turn told him about 
home ; in beautiful Florence he was still longing for " Monter 
Street." 

Upon leaving Florence, we wished to go by Terni to see the 
waterfall, and thence to Rome. We had a most wretched time : 
in the day burning sunshine, in evening and night venom- 
ous flies and gnats ; added to that a disagreeable vetturino, 
and the annoyances that such a man can inflict on a traveller. 

The sentences glorifying the beauty of Italy, which we saw 
written on the window-panes and on the walls of the inns, ap- 
peared to us to be travesties. I did not think then how dearly 
my heart would cling to that memorable and beautiful country. 
While still in Florence, on entering the coach which the vettu- 
rino had procured us, our torments began. At the coach door 
stood a human figure who, like Job, scraped himself with pot- 
sherds. We shook our heads when he touched the coach door ; 
he went round to the other side and got the same warning 
there ; he came back again, and was again sent away ; at last 
our vetturino appeared and told us that the man was a pas- 
senger, a nobleman from Rome ; that took us aback, and we 
let him in. 

But his filthiness of body and clothes determined us at last 
to tell the vetturino we could not make the journey with the 
man as long as he should be inside the coach, and so, after a 
good deal of talk and gesticulating, we saw the " nobleman " 
climbing up to the driver. The rain fell in torrents, and I was 
sorry for the poor man ; but really it was not possible for us 
to take him in to us, and so we let the rain wash him clean. 

The road was romantically beautiful, but the sun was burn- 
ing hot ; the flies hummed around us, and we tried to defend 
ourselves by myrtle branches ; the horses were so beset with 
flies that they looked like carcasses. We passed the night in 
a dreadful house at Levane. I saw the " nobleman " standing 
up by the fire-place drying his clothes, while he helped the 
hostess pluck the chickens we were to eat, and all the time giv- 



I06 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ing vent to his anger against us, — the heretical Englishmen 
as he called us, promising us a speedy punishment, which we 
really did get this very night ; for we left our windows open 
to get fresh air, and were so attacked by flies and gnats that 
our faces and hands swelled and bled ; one of my hands had 
no less than fifty-seven stings, and I suffered much from pain 
and fever. 

The following day we passed Castiglione, going through a 
luxuriously beautiful country with olive woods and vines ; fine- 
looking, half-naked children, and old women with silvery hair 
tended swine, that were shining and black as coal. At the 
Lake of Thrasymene, where Hannibal fought, I saw on the 
road-side the first native laurel-tree. We entered now the 
Papal States, and after having gone through an examination of 
our passports and trunks at the custom-house, we enjoyed the 
most beautiful sunset ; such a gorgeousness of colors I never 
shall forget. But the inn where we stayed was horrid ; the 
floor was broken, cripples gathered outside the door ; the 
hostess, dressed in a dirty wrapper, came grinning like an ugly 
witch and spat on the floor every time she brought in to us a 
dish of meat. 

I have recalled that place in "The Galoshes of Fortune," 
and given a picture of it, and how uncomfortable one may be 
in the " Bella Italia." The next forenoon we reached Pe- 
rugia, the city where Raphael was the pupil of Perugino, and 
where we saw pictures by the scholar and the master. 

We had a beautiful view over the extensive olive woods, and 
beheld the same scenery which was reflected in the eyes of 
Raphael, as also once in the eyes of the Emperor Augustus, 
when the arch of triumph, built of freestone, was erected for 
him, and is still in the same state as if finished yesterday. 

In the evening we arrived at Foligno. The city was in a 
very dilapidated state ; almost all the houses in the main 
street were supported by beams from the opposite houses. 
A short time since an earthquake occurred here \ the walls had 
great cracks, and some of the houses lay in ruins. It began 
to rain ; the inn was but a very poor shelter, and the meat 
could not be eaten even by us, who were almost starving from 
our long fast. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. \Q*] 

u Kennst du das Land " — 
sang a young German in parody, while the wind and rain 
shook the miserable windows. We said to ourselves, if now 
a new earthquake should come, the whole town would tumble 
down ; but that did not happen, and we slept safely. 

The next afternoon we were in Terni, at that magnificent 
waterfall in the midst of laurel and rosemary, away up in 
great olive groves, among all the splendors of Italy. A lit- 
tle stream rushing headlong from the rock, — that is all, but it 
is a most charming sight ; the water-dust rose like vapor far up 
in the "air ; the sun shone upon all with intensely red rays, 
then it set, and suddenly it became dark. 

It was deep night when I wandered through the dark olive 
woods, separated from my comrades, in company with a lively 
young American gentleman, who told me of Niagara, of 
Cooper, and the great prairies. 

The next day was rainy, the road was bad, the environs did 
not have anything new to show us, and we were tired to 
death. The filthy Nepi offered us a dirty hotel ; but ram- 
bling about in the evening, I came by accident upon some 
ruins out of town, where a waterfall rushed foaming down into 
an abyss. I have recalled it in my " Improvisatore, " where 
Antonio for the last time sees the features of Fulvia. 

The day at last came when we were to see Rome. We 
drove in rain and mud ; we passed by " Monte Soracte," cele- 
brated by Horace's song, through the Campagna of Rome; 
but none of us felt its grandeur, nor were captivated by the 
colors and beautiful outlines of the mountains ; we only thought 
how soon we were to get there, and of the repose we should 
then have. I must confess that when we came to the hill of 
La Storta, where those coming from the north get the first 
sight of Rome, I felt indeed happy ; but the impression was 
not that of a poet : at the first sight of Rome and St. Peter's 
I exclaimed : " God be praised ! now we can soon get some- 
thing to eat ! " 

ROME ! 

It was the 18th of October, in the middle of the day, when 
I arrived at Rome, the city of cities, where I soon was to feel 
as if I had been born there and was in my own house. I 



108 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

reached the city in time to witness a most rare event — the 
second funeral of Raphael. The Academia St. Luca had 
kept for many years a skull which was asserted to be the head 
of Raphael ;,but in later years, its genuineness being called in 
question, Pope Gregory XVI. gave permission to have the 
grave opened in the Pantheon, or, as the place is now called, 
Santa Maria della Rotunda. The dead man was found safe 
and sound, and the corpse was again to be deposited in the 
church. 

When the grave was opened and the bones brought forth, 
the painter Camuccini had sole permission to paint the whole 
scene. Horace Vernet, who lived in the French Academy at 
Rome and knew nothing about it, took his pencil and made a 
sketch. The papal police present forbade it ; he looked sur- 
prised at them, and said very quietly : " But at home I can 
do it from memory ? " Nobody could say anything against 
that, and in the time from twelve o'clock at noon until six 
o'clock in the evening he painted a beautiful and very truth- 
ful picture, and had it engraved afterward ; but the plate was 
immediately seized by the police and confiscated. Thereupon 
Vernet wrote a violent letter and demanded that they should 
deliver him the plate within twenty- four hours ; that art was not 
a monopoly, like salt and tobacco. They sent it back, and he 
broke it in pieces and dispatched them with a letter to 
Camuccini, written in a very fiery style, telling him that he 
might know by this that he was not going to make use of it to 
Camuccini's detriment. Camuccini had the plate put together 
again and sent it, accompanied with a very friendly letter, to 
Horace Vernet, declaring that he had entirely given up publish- 
ing his drawing. After that everybody was allowed to take a 
drawing of the grave, and in consequence there was a host of 
pictures. 

Our countrymen procured us tickets for the festival, and so 
our first entrance into Rome was to attend the funeral of 
Raphael. 

Upon a platform, covered with black cloth, stood a coffin of 
mahogany with cloth of gold. The priests sung a Miserere, the 
coffin was opened, and the reports read were deposited in it. 

The singing from an invisible choir sounded strangely beauti- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. IOQ 

ful, while the procession was moving around in the church. 
The most eminent artists and men of rank followed. Here I 
saw again, for the first time in Rome, Thorwaldsen, who, like 
the others, marched step by step bearing his taper. The 
solemn impression was rather disturbed, however, by the 
carelessness with which they lifted the coffin on end to get it 
through a small opening, so that we could hear the bones and 
joints rattle together. 

I was at last in Rome, and very happy. Of all my country- 
men, Mr. Christensen, the engraver, received me most kindly. 
We had not before been personally acquainted, but I had be- 
come dear to him through my lyric poems. He took me at 
once to Thorwaldsen, who lived in his old place in Via Felice \ 
he was just then occupied with his bass-relief, " Raphael." 
Raphael is seen sitting upon some ruins, where we see in 
bass-relief the Graces"; he is drawing from nature. Love holds 
the tablet for him, while at the same time she reaches him the 
poppy, an emblem of his early death ; the Genius with the torch 
looks sorrowfully upon him, and Victory stretches a wreath 
over his head. 

Thorwaldsen spoke with great liveliness of his idea, of the 
feast of yesterday, and of Raphael, Camuccini, and Vernet. He 
showed me many magnificent pictures, which he had bought of 
masters still living, and intended to give after his death to Den- 
mark. The plain straightforwardness and heartiness of this 
great artist affected me so that I almost shed tears when I 
took leave of him, although he said we must see each other 
now every day. 

Among other countrymen who were associated directly with 
me was Ludvig Bodtcher, from whom we have several beau- 
tiful poems, Italian in feeling. He lived a retired life in Rome, 
devoted to art, nature, and an intellectual dolce far niente : he 
had spent many years here — knew of all that was interesting 
and beautiful. In him I found a guide who had intellect and 
knowledge. 

There was another with whom I associated on even more 
cordial terms ; that was the painter Kiichler, who was at that 
time still young, bodily and spiritually, and not without humor. 
I did not then foresee what has since happened, that he would 



I IO THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

end his life as a mendicant friar in a little monastery in Silesia. 
When several years after I visited Rome for the second time, 
the youthful temperament was gone. It was very seldom 
that the humor again flashed up ; and in 1841, when for the 
third time I saw Rome, he had become a Catholic, and painted 
now only altar-pieces and religious pictures. He was, as we 
know, a couple of years since, ordained by Pio Nono as 
mendicant friar, and as such a one he wandered barefooted 
through Germany up to a poor monastery in the Prussian 
states. He was no more the painter Albert Kiichler, but the 
Franciscan Pietro di Sante Pio. May God grant him that 
peace and happiness which he, misunderstanding the loving 
God, is surely seeking in a bewildered way, and — will find ! 

It was still as in the most beautiful summer season at 
home, and although Rome with all its splendors was entirely 
new to me, I could not help visiting the country in such 
charming weather. A trip to the mountains was agreed upon. 
Kiichler, Blunck, Fearnley, and Bodtcher, who were as natives 
here, acted as leaders. Their knowledge of the Italian people, 
and. of the manners and habits of the country, not only made 
the trip very cheap, but I acquired also such a clear and pro- 
found apprehension of all that I became acclimatized intellect- 
ually ; the first germ of my pictures of Italian nature and life 
was planted within me, and sprung forth in my " Improvisatore." 
I had not yet thought of writing such a book, — not even any 
sketches of travel. 

This week's ramble was my most happy and most enjoyable 
time in that charming country. Across the Campagna, pass- 
ing by graves of antiquity, picturesque aqueducts, and groups 
of shepherds with their herds, we kept on to the Albanian 
Mountains, whose blue and charming undulating outlines 
seemed so near in the transparent air. 

At Frascati, where we took our breakfast, I saw for the first 
time a really popular "osterie," crowded with peasants and 
ecclesiastics. Hens and chickens ran about on the floor, the 
fire burned on the hearth, and the ragged boys dragged our 
donkeys up to the door; we mounted them, and continued 
our way on a trot or at an ambling pace, as it pleased them, 
always climbing, — passing the ruins of Cicero's villa to the an- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 1 I 

cient Tusculum, which now offered to the sight only paved 
streets, but no. houses, only fragments of walls among laurel 
and chestnut-trees. 

We visited Monte Pozio, where there was a well with such 
a resonance that it seemed to hide the source of music, — that 
sounding depth, from which Rossini poured out his laughing 
and triumphant melodies, and where Bellini shed his tears 
and sent out over the world his melancholy tones. 

We had the good fortune to be witnesses of more scenes 
of popular life than travellers nowadays are likely to see. 
We saw the golden-laced Dulcamara himself upon his medical 
car with his attendants, dressed as for a masquerade, making 
his quack-speech. 

We met with bandits chained to a cart drawn by oxen, and 
surrounded by gens-d'armes \ we saw a funeral, where the 
corpse lay uncovered upon the bier : the evening glow fell on 
the white cheeks, and the boys ran about with paper-horns, 
gathering up the wax that dripped from the monks' tapers. 
The bells rung, the songs resounded, the men played at morra, 
and the girls danced the Saltarello to the sounds of the tam- 
bourine. I have never since seen Italy more festive and 
beautiful ; I had Pignelli's pictures before me in nature and 
reality. 

We returned to Rome, to its magnificent churches, to the 
glorious galleries, and to all its treasures of art ; but the con- 
tinually charming summer weather, although we were in the 
middle of November, recalled us again to the mountains, and 
this time we started for Tivoli. 

The morning hours in the Campagna were cool as in au- 
tumn ■ the peasants made fires at which they warmed them- 
selves ; we met with country-people on horseback, dressed 
in wide, black, sheep-skin fur coats, as if we were in the coun- 
try of Hottentots ; but when the sun rose we had again warm 
summer weather. It was fresh and green about Tivoli, the 
city of cascades \ the olive woods were decked with bouquets 
of cypresses and red vine leaves. 

The great waterfalls rushed like masses of clouds down 
into the green ; it was a hot day, and we should have liked 
much to get a shower-bath under the fountain of Villa d'Este. 



1 1 2 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Here grow the tallest cypresses in Italy, as mighty as those 
of the Orient. In the darkness of the evening we descended 
to the foot of the high waterfall ; our torches threw a waver- 
ing light on the close laurel hedges ■ we listened to the thun- 
dering water rushing headlong, and the depth seemed to be 
not only greater but also nearer than it really was. We set 
fire to some bundles of straw, by which the old temple of Sibyl 
was illuminated, and with its colonnade made a background 
to the trembling flame. 

Once more in Rome, where the life of the people was as 
stirring as in Goethe's time, and where the artists met more 
kindly and tenderly than I have since known them to. The 
Scandinavians and Germans formed one circle ; the French, 
who had their own academy under the direction of Horace Ver- 
net, formed another. At the dinners in the osterie " Lepre," 
each nationality had its own table ; in the evening Swedes, 
Norwegians, Danes, and Germans came together in society, 
and here were still seen notabilities of former days. I saw the 
two old landscape-painters — Reinharci and Koch, as well as 
Thorwaldsen. 

Christmas was our most beautiful feast. I have mentioned 
it in "A Poet's Bazaar," but it has never since been so joy- 
ous, so fresh and bright as it was in 1833. We were not al- 
lowed to have our frolic within the city, and therefore we 
hired a large house in the garden of Villa Borghese, near 
the Amphitheatre. The flower-painter Jensen, the medal- 
engraver Christensen, and I went out there early in the morn- 
ing, and in our shirt-sleeves, in the warm sunshine, bound 
wreaths and garlands. A large orange-tree hung with fruit 
served for our Christmas-tree. The best prize, a silver cup, 
with the inscription, " Christmas Eve in Rome, 1833," I was 
happy enough to win. Each of the guests gave a present, and 
one or another funny thing was chosen. I had brought with 
me from Paris a pair of big yellow collars, which were not fit 
for anything but a carnival sport. These I wished to use, but 
my jest took a turn that might easily have ended in quarrel 
and anger. I had no idea that there existed another opinion 
than that of Thorwaldsen being the most eminent one present, 
and that I could therefore present him the wreath. The col- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



113 



lar, which bore the color of envy, was thus taken along with 
me in jest. I did not know what we now can read in Thiele's 
" Life of Thorwaldsen," that there had once been a quarrel 
between Bystrom and Thorwaldsen as to their respective 
abilities. Bystrom believed that Thorwaldsen surpassed him 
in bass-reliefs but not in groups. Thorwaldsen grew passion- 
ate and exclaimed : " You may tie my hands, and I will with 
my teeth bite the marble better than you can hew it ! " 

At the Christmas-feast both Thorwaldsen and Bystrom were 
present. I had made a wreath for my great countryman and 
written a little verse. The present was for him, but the yel- 
low collar which lay at the side of it was for the one who, by 
drawing lots, accidentally got this parcel. The lot was drawn 
by Bystrom, and the contents of the verse to the winner was : 
" You may keep Envy's yellow collar, but the wreath you must 
hand to Thorwaldsen ! " In a moment there w r as great confu- 
sion at such an ill-mannered act, but when it was found that the 
package had fallen accidentally into the hands of Bystrom, and 
that it came from me, all was smoothed over and good-humor 
was restored. 

I very seldom received letters from home, and except one or 
two they were all written with the intent to instruct me, and 
were often very inconsiderate. They could not help grieving 
me, and they affected me so much that the Danes whom I liked 
here in Rome, and with whom I associated, always exclaimed : 
" Have you got another letter from home ? I would not read 
such letters, and I would give up friends who only pain and 
plague me ! " Well, I needed to be educated and they took 
me in hand, but harshly and unkindly. They did not reflect 
how much a thoughtlessly written word could affect me ; 
when enemies smite with scourges, friends' whips are scor- 
pions. 

I had not yet heard anything of " Agnete." The first report 
of it was from a "good friend." His judgment of the poem 
will give you an idea of me as I was at that time : — 

" You know that your, I dare almost say, unnatural sensibil- 
ity and childishness make you very different from me — and I 
must tell you that I had expected something else ; another 
spirit, other ideas and images, and the least of all, such a 



114 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

character as that of Henning ; in short, ' Agnete ' seems to be 
like your other poems (N. B. like the best of your poems), 
although I had hoped here and there to perceive some intel- 
lectual change in you, as a result of your travelling. " I have 

talked with about it, and he agrees with me ; and as he, 

who is not only your friend but also a kind of mentor to you, 
has written to you concerning it, you shall be delivered from 

my advice Dear friend, chase away these money 

troubles and home thoughts, and turn your present journey 
to its full profit ! A little more manliness and power ; a little 
less childishness, eccentricity, and sentimentality ; a little 
more study and depth — and I shall congratulate Ander- 
sen's friends on his return, and Denmark at receiving her 
poet ! » 

That letter was from a man who was dear to ' me, who was 
among my true friends, younger in years, but in happy circum- 
stances and of ability ; one of those who would most gently 
express his opinion, because I was "so sensitive, so childish." 
I am surprised that he and other reasonable people could expect 
to discover a great change in me in " Agnete," under the influ- 
ence of travel, which, as I have before said, only consisted 
' in my journeying by steamer from Copenhagen to Kiel ; by the 
.diligence to Paris, and, later, to Switzerland ; and as soon as 
four months after my departure, I had sent the poem home. 
It required more time than that to see any results of my travel, 
and in the course of a year I brought forth my " Improvisatore." 

I felt so depressed by this and other letters still more pain- 
ful that I was in despair and on the point of forgetting God, 
and giving up Him and all mankind. I thought of death in 
an unchristian manner. You will, perhaps, ask me if there 
were none at that time who could say any kind and encourag- 
ing word of my cc Agnete," — the poem which had sprung out 
of my very heart, and not, as they wrote to me, " scribbled in 
a headlong fashion." Yes, there was one, and that one was 
Madame Lassbe. I am going to quote a couple of words from 
her letters : — 

. . . . " I must confess that ' Agnete ' has not met with 
great success, but to drag it down in the way you have heard is 
the work of malice. There are many great beauties in it, but I 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I I 5 

think that you have made a great mistake in the treatment of 
that subject. l Agnete ' is a butterfly, which we well may look 
at but may not touch. You have treated her very airily, 
but you have surrounded her with clumsy objects, and made 
her circle too small to flutter in." 

When I was thus depressed at the judgment passed upon me 
at home, I received information of the death of my old mother. 
Collin informed me of it, and my first exclamation was : " O 
God, I thank Thee ! Now her poverty is at an end, and I 
could not relieve her from it ! " I wept, but could not familiarize 
myself with the thought that I now possessed not a single one 
in the world who would love me because I was of the same 
kith and kin. That new impression brought forth tears, which 
I shed profusely, and I had a perception that that which had 
happened was the best for her. I had never been able to 
make her last days bright and free from sorrow. She died 
in the happy belief of my success, and that I had become 
famous. 

The poet Henrik Hertz was among those who had lately 
arrived at Paris. He was the one who had attacked me se- 
verely in the "Letters from the Dead." Collin wrote to me 
that Hertz would come, and that he would be glad to hear 
we had met as friends. 

I was in " Cafe Graeco " when Hertz one day entered ; he 
gave me his hand kindly, and I took great pleasure in con- 
versing with him. As soon as he perceived my sorrow, and 
understood my sufferings, he spoke very consoling words. 
He spoke of my works, of his opinion of them, hinted at 
the " Letters from the Dead," and, strange to say, begged me 
not to disregard harsh criticism, asserting that the romantic 
sphere in which I moved drove me into extravagances. He 
liked my pictures of nature, in which my humor was especially 
manifested, and as for the rest, he was sure it must be a con- 
solation to me that almost all true poets had gone through 
the same crisis as I, and that after this purgatory I would 
come to a sense of what was truth in the realm of art ! 

Hertz, together with Thorwaldsen, heard me read " Agnete," 
and remarked that he had not well caught the whole poem, 
but had found the lyric passages very successful, and thought 



I 1 6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

that what they at home called errors of form were what the 
romance lost by being treated dramatically. Thorwaldsen 
did not say much, but sat and listened attentively with a seri- 
ous, thoughtful face while I read. When his look met mine, 
he nodded kindly and cheerfully. He pressed my hand and 
praised the melody. " It is so real Danish," said he, " and 
springs from the woods and the sea at home." 

It was in Rome that I first became acquainted with Thor- 
waldsen. Many years before, when I had not long been in 
Copenhagen, and was walking through the streets as a poor 
boy, Thorwaldsen was there too : that was on his first return 
home. We met one another in the street. I knew that he 
was a distinguished man in art ; I looked at him, I bowed ; 
he went on, and then, suddenly turning round, came back to 
me and said, " Where have I seen you before ? I think we 
know one another." I replied, "No, we do not know one 
another at all." I now related this story to him in Rome ; 
he smiled, pressed my hand, and said, " Yet we felt at that 
time that we should become good friends." I read " Agnete " 
to him ; and that which delighted me in his judgment upon it 
was the assertion, " It is just," said he, " as if I were walking 
at home in the woods, and heard the Danish lakes : " and 
then he kissed me. 

One day, when he saw how distressed I was, and I told 
him about the pasquinade which I had received from home 
in Paris, he gnashed his teeth violently, and said, in momen- 
tary anger, " Yes, yes, I know the people ; it would not have 
gone any better with me if I had remained there ; I should 
then, perhaps, not even have obtained permission to set up a 
model. Thank God that I did not need them, for there they 
know how to torment and to annoy." He desired me to keep 
up a good heart, and then things could not fail of going well ; 
and with that he told me of some dark passages in his own 
life, where he in like manner had been mortified and unjustly 
condemned. 

After the Carnival I left Rome for Naples. Hertz and I 
travelled together, My intercourse with him was of great 
value to me, and I felt that I had one more generous 
critic. We travelled over the Albanian Mountains and through 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



117 



the Pontine Marshes, and reached Terracina, where the oranges 
grow, where we saw our first palm-trees in the gardens near 
the road ; the Indian tig spreads its heavy leaves along the 
rocks, where we see the ruins of Theodoric's Castle ; Cyclopean 
walls, laurel and myrtle became soon an every-day sight. We 
saw from Cicero's villa in Mola di Gaeta the open Garden of 
the Hesperides. I strolled in the warm air under the large 
lemon and orange-trees, and threw the yellow, shining fruits 
into the charming blue sea, which gleamed and broke in gen- 
tle waves. 

We remained here a day and night, and arrived at Naples 
in time to see the full eruption of Vesuvius. Like long roots 
of fire from a pine-tree of smoke the lava flowed down the 
dark mountain. 

I went with Hertz and some other Northmen to visit the 
eruption. The road winds through vineyards and by the side 
of lonely buildings, the vegetation changing soon into mere 
rushes ; the evening was infinitely beautiful. 

From the hermitage we wandered on foot up the mountain 
ankle-deep in ashes ; I was in a happy humor, sang loudly 
one of Weyse's melodies, and was the first to reach the sum- 
mit. The moon shone directly upon the crater, from which 
ascended a pitch-black smoke • glowing stones were thrown 
up in the air and fell almost perpendicularly down again ; the 
mountain shook under our feet. At each eruption the moon 
was covered by smoke, and as it was a dark night we were 
obliged to stand still and hold on by the big lava blocks. We 
perceived that it was gradually growing warmer beneath us. 
The new lava stream burst forth from the mountain out toward 
the sea. We wished to go thither, and we were obliged to pass 
over a lava stream recently hardened ; only its upper crust was 
stiffened by the air, red fire gleamed forth from rifts here and 
there. Led by our guide we stepped upon the surface, which 
heated us through our boot-soles. If the crust had broken, we 
should certainly have sunk down into a fiery abyss. We ad- 
vanced silently and reached the lava blocks that had been 
hurled down, where we met with many travellers, and from here 
we looked out over the stream of fire that was breaking forth 
and rolling down — a sort of fiery gruel ! The sulphurous 



I I 8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

vapor was very intense ; we could scarcely endure the heat 
under our feet, and were not able to stand here more than a 
few minutes ; but what we saw is burned into our thoughts. 
We saw round about us abysses of fire, and out of the crater 
it whistled as if a mighty flock of birds were flying up from 
a wood. 

We could not mount to the very cone, because red-hot stones 
were continually raining down. About an hour was occupied in 
the short but heavy climbing up to the place where we stood, 
while it only took ten minutes to descend. We went at a fly- 
ing pace ; for to keep from falling upon our face we had to 
drive our heels in constantly ; often we fell flat upon our backs 
in the soft ashes. The descent was a merry fall through the 
air. It was charming, tranquil weather ; the lava shone from 
the black ground like colossal stars. The moonshine was 
clearer than it is at home in the North at noon-time on a 
gloomy autumn day. 

When we came down to Portici we found all the houses and 
doors shut, not a man to be seen, and no coaches to be had, 
and so the whole company went home a-foot ; but Hertz was 
obliged to lag, as on the descent he had bruised his foot ; so 
I stayed by him, and we walked slowly and soon were both quite 
alone. The flat-roofed white houses shone in the clear moon- 
shine ; we did not meet nor see a man : Hertz said, that it 
seemed to him as if we were passing through the extinct city 
in the " Arabian Nights." 

We spoke of poetry and of eating. We were indeed uncom- 
monly hungry, and every osterie was closed, so we were com- 
pelled to endure it until we should reach Naples. The large 
undulating outlines were broken in the moonlight as if it were 
blue fire ; Vesuvius cast up its pillar of fire, the lava was re- 
flected as a dark-red stripe in the quiet sea. Several times 
we stopped in silent admiration, but our conversation always 
turned again upon a good supper, and that late in the night 
was the bouquet of the whole. 

Later I visited Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Grecian 
temple at Paestum. There I saw a poor little girl in rags, but 
an image of beauty, a living statue, yet still a child. She had 
some blue violets in her black hair ; that was all her ornament. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. \ 19 

She made an impression upon me as if she were a spirit from 
the world of beauty. I could not give her money, but stood 
in reverence and looked at her, as if she were the goddess her- 
self appearing from that temple upon the steps of which she 
was seated among the wild figs. 

The days were like the beautiful summer of the North, and 
we were in the month of March. The sea looked very invit- 
ing, and I sailed with a party in an open boat from Salerno to 
Amalfl and Capri, where the Blue Grotto some years ago had 
been discovered, and was now the great attraction to all trav- 
ellers here. The witch-hole, as it was called here, had become 
the wonderful grotto of the fairies. I was one of the first 
who described it \ years have since elapsed, but storm and 
undulation have always since prevented me from again visiting 
this magnificent spot ; yet once seen it never can be forgotten. 
I was not so much taken with Ischia, and subsequent visits 
have not been able to put it beside the island of the Tiber, 
the wooden-shoe-shaped Capri. 

Malibran was in Naples \ I heard her in " Norma," " The 
Barber," and " La prova." And so from the world of music 
Italy disclosed a wonder to me ; I wept and laughed, and 
was raised to a pitch of excitement. In the midst of the en- 
thusiasm and applause I heard a hiss thrown at her, — only a 
single hiss. Lablache made his appearance as Zampa in the 
opera "Zampa," but he was ever memorable as Figaro, — 
what liveliness, what gayety ! 

On the twentieth of March we returned for Easter week to 
Rome. The mountains were dressed in winter garments. 
We visited Caserta to see the great royal castle there, with 
its rich saloons and pictures from the time of Murat \ we went 
to see the amphitheatre at Capua, with its vaults under the 
floor, — huge openings, which have been furnished with con- 
trivances so that one can go up and down. All was seen. 

The Easter Feast kept us in Rome. At the illumination of 
the dome I was separated from my company. The great crowd 
of people carried me away with them over the Angelo bridge, 
and when I had reached the middle of it I came near faint- 
ing \ a shivering went through me, my feet shook under me, 
and could not longer carry me. The mass pressed on ; I was 



120 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

overwhelmed with a trembling sensation ; it grew blacK oefore 
my eyes ; I had a feeling of being trampled under foot ; but 
by an exertion of soul and body I kept up : they were terrible 
seconds, that dwell in my thoughts more than the splendor 
and magnificence of the feast. 

Meanwhile I reached the other side of the bridge and felt 
much better. Blunck's studio was near by, and from here, with 
the Angelo castle in front, I saw to the end the grand Giran- 
dola, surpassing all the fire-works I ever before had seen. The 
fire-works at the July feast in Paris were but poor in com- 
parison with Rome's splendid cascades of fire. 

In the Osterie my countrymen drank my health, bidding 
me farewell, and sang a travelling song. Thorwaldsen hugged 
me and said that we should see each other again in Denmark 
or in Rome. My second of April I spent at Montefiascone. 
An Italian married couple, very amiable people, were my trav- 
elling companions. The young wife was very much afraid of 
robbers, as the country was said to be unsafe ; the burned 
tracts of woodland, with their black stumps of trees, did not 
enliven the scenery ■ the mountain roads were narrow, with 
black deep abysses ; and now there rose a tempest so violent 
that for several hours we were compelled to take shelter in a 
little inn at Novella. The storm raged, the rain drove down ; 
the whole scene was like that of a robber-story, but the rob- 
bers were wanting, and the end of the story was that we 
reached Siena, and later also Florence, safe and sound. Flor- 
ence was now an old acquaintance of mine, together with all 
that it possessed, — even from the metal pig to its churches 
and galleries. 

In the director of the Cabinet Literaire^ Wieusseux, I learned 
to know a man who, sixteen years ago, had been in Denmark 
and lived there in the house of the authoress Madame Brun. 
He knew Oehlenschlager and Baggesen, talked of them and of 
Copenhagen and its life. When we are abroad and hear peo- 
ple talk of home, we feel then how dear it is to us. I did 
not feel however any home-sickness, and had not felt it during 
my whole journey. I looked anxiously toward the time of re- 
turning home, as if I were then to be awakened from a beau- 
tiful dream to heavy reality, to suffering and patience. And 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 2 I 

now my face was turned homeward. Spring went with me ; 
in Florence the laurel-trees were in bloom. Spring was round 
about me, but it dared not breathe into my soul. I went 
northward over the mountains to Bologna. Malibran sung 
here, and I was to see Raphael's " Saint Cecilia," and then 
again by Ferrara to Venice, the withered lotus of the sea. 

If one has seen Genoa with its magnificent palaces, Rome 
with its monuments, and has wandered in the sunny, laughing 
Naples, Venice will only be a step-child ; and still this city 
is so peculiar, so different from all other cities of Italy, that 
it ought to be seen, but before the others, and not as a triste 
vale at the departure from Italy. Goethe speaks of that se- 
pulchral spectacle, the Venetian gondola. It is a swift, swim- 
ming mortuary bier, pitch-black with black fringes, black tas- 
sels, and black curtains. At Fusina we went on board such 
a one, and passing between an interminable range of poles, 
through muddy water and clearer water, we entered the si- 
lent city. Only the Place of St. Mark with its variegated 
church of Oriental architecture, and the wondrous Doge Palace 
with its dark memories, the prison and the Bridge of Sighs, 
were lively with people. Greeks and Turks sat and smoked 
their long pipes, doves flew by hundreds round the trophy 
poles, from which waved mighty flags. 

It seemed to me as if I were on the wreck of a spectral, gi- 
gantic ship, especially when it was day-time. In the evening, 
when the moon shines, the whole city seems to rouse ; then 
the palaces stand out more squarely and look more noble. 
Venetia, the queen of Adria, that in the day-time is a dead 
swan upon the muddy water, gets then life and beauty. 

A scorpion had stung my hand, and this made my stay here 
a painful one. All the veins in my arm swelled. I had par- 
oxysms of fever, but fortunately the weather was cold, the 
sting not very venomous, and in the black, sepulchral gondola 
I left Venice without regret, to go to another city of graves, — 
that where the Scaligers repose, and where is the tomb of 
Romeo and Juliet, — the city of Verona. 

My countryman, the painter Bendz, born like myself in 
Odense, left his home in youth and freshness ; his talent was 
acknowledged, he had a faithful bride, and hastened joyfully 



122 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

to Italy, climbed the Alps, saw the Canaan of art lying before 
him, and suddenly died in Vicenza. I sought his grave, but 
nobody could tell me where it was. The memory of this 
brother from the same native town, came vividly before me on 
this spot. His lot seemed to me so happy, that I could have 
wished my own the same ! my mind became more and more 
depressed as I ascended the Alps, toward the North, home- 
ward. 

I travelled in company with a young Scot, Mr. Jameson 
from Edinburgh \ he found that the Tyrol Mountains bore a 
great resemblance to the heights of his own home, and tears 
came into his eyes, for he felt home-sick ; I did not know 
that disease. I only felt an increasing depression in thinking 
of all I was to meet with, anticipating the bitter cup I certainly 
would have to drink. Besides, I was sure I never again 
should see this beautiful country I now was leaving. 

The Alps lay behind us, and the Bavarian table-land 
stretched before us. The last of May I arrived at Munich. 
I took a room in the house of an honest comb-maker on 
Carl Square. I had no acquaintances, but these were soon 
made. In the street I immediately met with my countryman 
Birch, who married Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, renowned as an 
authoress and actress. She was at that time directress of the 
City Theatre in Zurich, and therefore I could not then make 
her acquaintance. I had formerly often seen Birch in Si- 
bom's house \ he knew me, and showed me much attention 
and kindness. We saw each other often, and he was frank 
and sociable. 

The philosopher Schelling was then living in Munich. I 
had heard much about him from H. C. Orsted. I can add 
another kind of connection too. My landlady in Copenhagen 
had told me that Schelling, during his stay there, had lived in 
her house, and that the bed I occupied had been his. I 
had no letters of recommendation, nobody who could intro- 
duce me to him ; therefore I went without ceremony to his 
house, announced myself, and was very well received by the 
old man. He conversed a long time with me about Italy ; 
I did not speak German well, one Danish idiom followed 
another; but just that was what interested him most, — the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 23 

Danish element shone through, he said \ it seemed to him 
so strange and yet so familiar. He invited me to see his 
family and talked with me very kindly. Several years after- 
ward, when I had acquired a name in Germany, we met in 
Berlin as old friends. 

My stay at Munich was very pleasant, but the days pointed 
more and more toward my real home, Copenhagen. By care- 
ful economy I tried to extend the time of my stay, for I was 
afraid that once home I should grow fast there, and the rolling 
seas would pass over me. 

From letters I learned how entirely I had been given up 
and blotted out_ as poet ; the " Monthly Journal of Litera- 
ture " had publicly stated this as a plain fact. It was my 
u Collected Poems," published during my absence, which had 
separately met with great success, and the M Twelve Months 
of the Year," that served as proof of my intellectual death. A 
travelling friend brought me the " Monthly Journal ; " of 
course it was well that I should see it with my own eyes. 

I left Munich. In the coach was a lively man who was go- 
ing to the bath of Gastein ; at the city gate the poet Saphir 
came and shook hands with him. My companion was very 
interesting ; the theatre was soon made the subject of our 
conversation ; we spoke of the last representation of " Gotz 
von Berlichingen," where Esslair had the principal part and 
was several times called out : but he did not please me ; 
I told my companion so, and said that I liked Mr. Wesper- 
mann, who played the part of Selbitz, best of all. " I thank 
you for the compliment ! " exclaimed the stranger. It was 
Wespermann himself; I did not know him ; my joy at being 
in company with that able artist drew me nearer to him, and 
the journey made us friends. 

We reached the Austrian frontier. My passport from Co- 
penhagen was in French, the frontier guard looked at it, and 
asked for my name. I answered, " Hans Christian Ander- 
sen ! '" 

"That name is not in your passport, your name is Jean 
Chretien Andersen ; so you travel under another name than 
your own ? " 

Now commenced an examination, which became very amus* 



I 24 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ing. I, who never carried either cigars or other prohibited 
articles with me, had my trunk searched through and through, 
and I myself was scrupulously examined ; all my letters from 
home were looked through; they made me declare on oath 
whether they contained anything beside family affairs ; after 
that they asked me what my " chapeau bras " was. I an- 
swered, "A hat for society." — "What kind of society?" 
asked they, — "a secret society ? " My ivy wreath from the 
Christmas Feast in Rome seemed very suspicious to them. 
" Have you been in Paris ? " they again asked. " Yes ! " And 
now they let me know that all was as it ought to be in 
Austria,that they were not going to have revolutions, and were 
very well contented with their Emperor Franz. I assured 
them that I was of the same mind, and that they might be en- 
tirely at rest ; I hated revolutions, and was a tiptop kind of 
subject That all went for nothing; I was more severely 
searched than all the others, and the only reason was that the 
officer in Copenhagen had translated the Danish name Hans 
Christian by Jean Chretien. 

In Salzburg, near my lodging, was an old house with 
figures and inscriptions ; it had belonged to Doctor Theo- 
phrastus Bombastus Paracelsus, who died there. The old 
serving-woman in the inn told me that she also was born in 
that house, and that she knew about Paracelsus ; that he was 
a man who could cure the disease among men of quality called 
gout, and on that account the other doctors grew angry and 
gave him poison ; he discovered it, and was skillful enough to 
know how to drive the poison out. He therefore locked him- 
self in the house, and ordered his servant not to open the door 
before he called him ; but the servant was very curious, and 
opened the door before the time, when his master had not got 
the poison higher up than into the throat, and seeing the door 
open, Paracelsus fell dead on the floor. That was the popu- 
lar story I got. Paracelsus has always been to me a very 
romantic and attractive personage, and no doubt could be 
made use of in a Danish poem, for his wandering life carried 
him up to Denmark. He is spoken of as surgeon in the 
allied army there, and is mentioned during the reign of 
Christian II. as giving Mother Sigbrith in Copenhagen a 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 25 

kind of physic in a vial, which cracked and let the contents 
out with a noise like a clap of thunder. Poor Paracelsus ! he 
was called a quack, but was a genius in his art before his 
time : but every one who goes before the coach of Time gets 
kicked or trampled down by its horses. 

When one is in Salzburg one must also see Hallein, go 
through the salt works, and pass over the cover of the salt- 
boiling, huge iron pan. The waterfall at Golling foams over 
the blocks of stone, but I have forgotten all impressions save 
that made by the smiles of a child. I had for guide a little 
boy who possessed in a singular degree the seriousness of 
an old man, a look which we sometimes perceive among 
children ■ an air of intelligence, a certain seriousness, was 
spread over the little fellow, not a smile was seen upon his 
face. Only when we arrived at the foot of the foaming, rush- 
ing waters, which resounded in the air, his eyes began to beam, 
and the little chap smiled so happily and said proudly, " That 
is Golling Fall ! " The waters foam and foam still \ I have 
forgotten them, but not the smile of the boy. It often happens 
that we notice and retain in our memory some little thing 
about places we see, which many may call unessential or acci- 
dental. The magnificent monastery at Molk on the Danube, 
with its splendor of marble and its magnificent view, has only 
left in my mind one permanent, fresh remembrance — that of a 
large, black, burnt spot on the floor. It was caused during the 
war in 1809 ■ the Austrians were encamped on the northern 
bank of the Danube : Napoleon had taken up his quarters in 
the monastery. A dispatch which in a fit of anger he had set 
fire to and thrown away, had burnt that hole in the floor. 

At last I came in sight of the steeple of St. Stephen's Church, 
and soon I stood in the Imperial City 7 . The house of the 
Sonnenleitners was at that time a true home for all Danes. 
We always found countrymen here, and many notabilities used 
to meet here in the evening : Captain Tscherning, the doc- 
tors Bendz and Thune, the Norwegian Schweigaard. I did 
not go there very often, as the theatre had more attraction for 
me. The Bourg Theatre was excellent. I saw Anschiitz as 
Gfftz van Bcrlichingcn ; Madame von Weissenthurn as Madame 
Herb in "The Americans." What a play it was! A 



126 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

young girl, Mathilde Wildauer, who has since acquired the 
name of an artist, made her first appearance on the stage in 
these days as Gurli in the " Indians in England." Several 
comedies of Kotzebue were given here in a very excellent way. 
Kotzebue had good sense, but no great fancy; he was the 
Scribe of his time ; he could write unpoetical pieces, but his 
good sense gave them all admirable dialogues. 

In Hitzing I saw and heard Strauss ; he stood there in the 
middle of his orchestra like the heart in that waltz organism ; 
it seemed to me as if the melodies poured through him and 
escaped out of all his members \ his eyes flashed, and it was 
easy to see that he was the life and soul of the orchestra. 
Madame von Weissenthurn had her villa in Hitzing, and I made 
the acquaintance of this interesting lady. I have since, in 
"A Poet's Bazaar," given a kind of silhouette of this amiable 
and gifted lady. Her comedies, " Which is the Bride," and 
" The Estate of Sternberg," have been received with great suc- 
cess on the Danish stage. Our younger people, I suppose, do 
not know Johanne von Weissenthurn ; she was daughter of an 
actor, and appeared on the stage while quite a child. In the 
year 1809, she played Phczdra for Napoleon in Schonbrunn, 
and was presented by him with a gift of full three thousand 
francs. She wrote on a wager in eight days, when twenty-five 
years old, the drama " Die Drusen " ; since that she has writ- 
ten more than sixty dramatic pieces ; and after forty years ac- 
tivity the Emperor Franz bestowed upon her the " golden civil- 
honor medal," which had not been given to any actress before, 
and which procured her the Prussian golden medal for arts 
and sciences. She left the theatre in 1841, and died in Hit- 
zing the 1 8th of May, 1847. Her comedies are published in 
fourteen volumes. I spoke for the first time with her at her 
villa in Hitzing ; she was a great admirer of Oehlenschlager. 
" The great one " she always called him, whom she had learnt 
to know and estimate, when he as a young man was in Vienna. 
She liked to listen to my narratives from Italy, and said that 
my words gave her a clear perception of that country, so that 
she seemed to be there with me. 

In Sonnenleitner's house I learned to know Mr. Grillparzer, 
who had written " The Ancestress," and "The Golden Fleece." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. \2*] 

In true Viennese fashion he shook my hand and greeted me 
as a poet. 

I saw Castelli very often. He is undoubtedly the type of a 
true Viennese, and is in possession of all the excellent and pe- 
culiar qualities of such a one, — namely, good-nature, brilliant 
humor, faithfulness and devotion to his emperor. " The good 
Franz," said he, " I have written a petition to him in verse, 
and begged him when we Vienneses meet him and salute him 
not to answer our salutations by taking off his hat in this cold 
weather ! " I saw all his bijouterie — his collections of snuff- 
boxes ; one of them, in the shape of a snail, had belonged to 
Voltaire ! " Bow and kiss it," said he. 

In my " Only a Fiddler," where Naomi appears in Vienna, 
I have made Castelli one of the actors, and the verse which 
stands at the head of the chapter was written for me by the 
poet before we separated. 

After spending a month in Vienna I commenced my journey 
homeward by way of Prague, enjoying "the poetry of travel- 
ling life " as people call it. A crowd of people were squeezed 
together, the coach jerked and rattled, but this brought out 
some droll characters that helped to keep up the good humor 
in the coach. Among others we had an old gentleman who 
was displeased with everything \ he had been the victim of 
extortion, and was continually calculating how much money he 
had spent, and he found that it was always too much • first it 
was for a cup of coffee that was not worth the money, then 
he was vexed by the degeneracy of the young people nowa- 
days, who had too much to do with everything, even with the 
fate of the world. A dirty Jew who was seated at his side, 
prattled all the time and told ten times over his journey to 
Ragusa in Dalmatia ! he would not, he said, be a king, — that 
was too much \ but he would like to be a king's valet, like 
one he had known, who had grown so fleshy that he could 
not walk, and was obliged to have a valet for himself. He 
was nasty from head to foot, and yet he w r as continually talk- 
ing of cleanliness. He was indignant at hearing that in 
Hungary they used to heat the ovens with cow's dung ! he 
served up old anecdotes to us. , Suddenly he became ab- 
sorbed in thought, drew a paper out of his packet, rolled his 



128 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

eyes about, and wrote. He had ideas ! he said, and asked me 
to read what he had written down. 

There were no reserved seats in the coach, and we had to 
agree the best way we could ; but the two best places were after 
all taken away from us by two new travellers, who stepped in 
at Iglau while we, weary and hungry, went to the supper- 
table. They were a young woman with her husband ; he was 
already asleep when we reentered the coach ; she was awake 
enough for both of them, and loquacity itself; she spoke of 
art and literature, of refined education, of reading a poet and 
comprehending him, of music and plastic art, of Calderon and 
Mendelssohn. Sometimes she stopped, and sighed at her 
husband, who leaned his head upon her : " Raise your angelic 
head, it crushes my bosom ! " said she. And now she talked 
about her father's library, and of the meeting she was again to 
have with him • and when I asked her of the Bohemian litera- 
ture, she was intimately acquainted with all the authors of note 
in the country, — they came to her father's house, who had in 
his library a complete collection of books belonging to modern 
literature, etc. When day broke I perceived that she and her 
husband were a fair Jewish couple ; he awoke, drank a cup of 
coffee, and fell asleep again, leaned his head against his wife, 
opened his mouth only once to utter a wornout witticism, and 
so slept again — that angel ! 

She wanted to know about us all, what our positions and 
conditions were, and learning that I was an author, she took 
much interest in me. When we gave our names at the gates 
of Prague, an old deaf gentleman said that his name was 
" Professor Zimmermann ! " " Zimmermann ! " she cried out ; 
" Zimmermann's ' Solitude ! ' Are you Zimmermann ? " She 
did not know that the author she meant had been dead a long 
time. The deaf gentleman repeated his name, and now she 
burst out into lamentations that only at the hour of separation 
she had learned with whom she had been travelling. 

I had told her that I meant to go early next morning to 
Dresden ; she said that she was very sorry for it, because she 
would have invited me to see her father and his library, and, 
perhaps, meet with people of sympathetic mind ! " We live in 
the largest house of the place ! " She pointed it out to me 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 29 

and I saw that both she and her husband entered it. When 
they took leave, the husband gave me his card. The next 
morning I decided to stay two days in Prague, so I could 
pay my travelling companions a visit, and take a view of the 
library with its Bohemian literature. 

I went to the large house where I had seen the couple 
enter. In the first story nobody knew anything of the family, 
nor in the second story ; mounting the third, I mentioned the 
great library that was said to be there ! no, nobody knew of 
it. I reached the fourth story, but neither here was any in- 
formation to be had, and they said that no other families lived 
in the house except those I had seen • there lived, to be sure, 
an old Jew in a couple of garrets in the top of the house, but 
they were sure that I could not mean him. Nevertheless I 
mounted the stairs, — the walls to the staircase consisting of 
rough boards ; there was a low door at which I knocked. An 
old man dressed in a dirty night-gown opened it, and I stepped 
into a low-studded room \ in the middle of the floor stood a 
large clothes-basket filled with books. " It is not possible 
that family lives here ! " said I. 

" My God ! " cried a female voice from a little side-chamber. 
I looked in that direction and beheld my travelling lady in 
negligee, balancing her fine, black silk travelling gown over 
her head in order to get it on, and in the opposite chamber 
her husband gaped in a sleepy fashion, drowsily nodding his 
" angel head." I stood amazed : the lady stepped in, the 
dress open in the back, an untied bonnet on the head, and her 
cheeks blushing with surprise. " Von Andersen ! " said she, 
and uttered an excuse. All was out of order here, and her 
father's library — she pointed at the clothes-basket. All the 
boasting in the travelling coach was reduced to a garret and a 
bag filled with books ! 

From Prague I went by Toeplitz and Dresden home to Den- 
mark. With mingled feelings in my heart I went ashore, and 
not all the tears I shed were tears of joy. But God was with 
me. I had no thought or affection for Germany ; my heart was 
attached to Italy, which was a paradise lost to me, where I 
should never again go. With dread and anxiety I looked 
toward the future at home. 
9 



I3O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Italy, with its scenery and the life of its people, occupied 
my soul, and toward this land I felt a yearning. My earlier 
life and what I had now seen, blended themselves together 
into an image — into poetry, which I was compelled to write 
down, although I was convinced that it would occasion me 
more trouble than joy, if my necessities at home should 
oblige me to print it. I had already in Rome written the first 
chapter, and others afterward in Munich. It was my novel 
of " The Improvisatore." In a letter I received in Rome, J. 
L. Heiberg wrote that he considered me as a kind of an im- 
provisatore, and that word was the spark which gave my new 
poem its name. 

At one of my first visits to the theatre at Odense, as a little 
boy, where, as I have already mentioned, the representations 
were given in the German language, I saw the " Donauweib- 
chen," and the public applauded the actress of the principal 
part. Homage was paid to her, and she was honored ; and I 
vividly remember thinking how happy she must be. Many 
years afterward, when, as a student, I visited Odense, I saw, 
in one of the chambers of the hospital where the poor widows 
lived, and where one bed stood by another, a female portrait 
hanging over one bed in a gilt frame. It was Lessing's 
" Emelia Galotti," and represented her as pulling the rose to 
pieces ; but the picture was a portrait. It appeared singular 
in contrast with the poverty by which it was surrounded. 

" Whom does it represent ? " asked I. 

" O ! " said one of the old women, " it is the face of the 
German lady, — the poor lady who was once an actress ! " 
And then I saw a little delicate woman, whose face was cov- 
ered with wrinkles, and in an old silk gown that once had 
been black. That was the once celebrated singer, who, as the 
Donauweibchen, had been applauded by every one. This 
circumstance made an indelible impression upon me, and 
often occurred to my mind. 

In Naples I heard Malibran for the first time. Her sing- 
ing and acting surpassed anything which I had hitherto either 
heard or seen ; and yet I thought the while of the misera- 
bly poor singer in the hospital of Odense : the two figures 
blended into the Annunciata of the novel. Italy was the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



131 



background for that which had been experienced and that 
which was imagined. 

My journey was ended. It was in August of 1834 that I 
returned to Denmark. I wrote the first part of the book at 
Ingemann's, in Soro, in a little chamber in the roof, among 
fragrant lime-trees. I finished it in Copenhagen. 

" To the Conference Councilor Collin and to his noble 
wife, in whom I found parents, whose children were brethren 
and sisters to me, whose house was my home, do I here pre- 
sent the best of which I am possessed." So ran the dedi- 
cation. 

The book was read, the edition sold, and another one 
printed. The critics were silent, the newspapers said nothing, 
but I heard in roundabout ways that there was an interest 
felt in my production, and that many were much pleased with 
it. At length the poet Carl Bagger wrote a notice in the 
" Sunday Times/' of which he was editor, that began thus : — 

" ' The poet Andersen does not write now as well as formerly ; 
he is exhausted : that I have for a long time expected.' In 
this fashion the poet is spoken of here and there in some of 
the aristocratic circles, perhaps in the very place where on his 
first appearance he w r as petted and almost idolized. But that 
he is not exhausted, and that he now, on the contrary, has 
swung himself into a position altogether unknown to him be- 
fore, he has by his ' Improvisatore ' shown in a most brilliant 
way." 

People laugh now 7 at me, but I say frankly I w r ept aloud, 
I cried for very gladness, and was moved to thankfulness to- 
ward God and man. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MANY who formerly had been my enemies, now changed 
their opinion ; and among these one became my friend, 
who, I hope, will remain so through the whole of my life. 
That was Hauch the poet, — one of the noblest characters with 
whom I am acquainted. He had returned home from Italy 
after a residence of several years abroad, just at the same time 
when Heiberg's vaudevilles were intoxicating the inhabitants 
of Copenhagen, and when my " Journey on Foot " was making 
me a little known. He commenced a controversy with Hei- 
berg, and somewhat scoffed at me. Nobody called his atten- 
tion to my better lyrical writings ; I was described to him as 
a spoiled, petulant child of fortune. He now read my " Impro- 
visator, " and feeling that there was something good in me, his 
noble character evinced itself by his writing a cordial letter to 
me, in which he said that he had done me an injustice, and 
offered me now the hand of reconciliation. From that time 
we became friends. He used his influence for me with the 
utmost zeal, and has watched my onward career with heartfelt 
friendship. But so little able have many people been to 
understand what is excellent in him or the noble connection 
of heart between us two, that not long since, when he wrote . 
a long novel, and drew in it the caricature of a poet, whose 
vanity ended in insanity, the people in Denmark discovered 
that he had treated me with the greatest injustice, because he 
had described in it my weakness. People must not believe 
that this was the assertion of one single person, or a misap- 
prehension of my character ; no : and Hauch felt himself com- 
pelled to write a treatise upon me as a poet, that he might 
show what a different place he assigned to me. 

But to return to " The Improvisators " This book raised my 
sunken fortunes, collected my friends again around me, nay, 
even obtained for me new ones. For the first time I felt that 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



133 



I had obtained a due acknowledgment. The book was trans- 
lated into German by Kruse, with a long title, " Jugendleben 
und Traume eines italianischen Dichter's." I objected to the 
title ; but he declared that it was necessary in order to attract 
attention to the book. 

Bagger had, as already stated, been the first to pass judg- 
ment on the work ; after an interval of some time a second 
critique made its appearance, more courteous, it is true, than 
I was accustomed to, but still passing lightly over the best 
things in the book, and dwelling on its deficiencies, and on the 
number of incorrectly written Italian words. And as Nico- 
lai's well-known book, " Italy as it really is," came out just 
then, people universally said, " Now we shall be able to see 
what it is about which Andersen has written, for from Nicolai 
a true idea of Italy will be obtained for the first time." 

I presented my book to Christian VIII., at that time Prince 
Christian. In the antechamber I met with one of our lesser 
poets, who is in possession of a high rank in the state calen- 
dar ; he was so condescending as to speak to me. Well, 
we exercised the same trade, we were both poets, and now he 
delivered a little lecture for my benefit to a high personage 
present on the word " Collosseum." He had seen that word 
spelled by Byron " Coliseum," — that was terrible ! The same 
blunder kept recurring, and made one forget what there might 
be of good in the book. The lecture was delivered in a loud 
voice for the benefit of the whole assembly. I tried to demon- 
strate that I had written it in exactly the right way and Byron 
not 1 the noble gentleman shrugged his shoulders and smiled, 
handed me my book, and regretted " the bad misprint in that 
beautifully bound book ! " 

The " Monthly Review of Literature " noticed many little 
now forgotten pamphlets and comedies, but did not deign to 
bestow on " The Improvisatore " a single word, perhaps 
because it already had a great public ; a second edition of 
the book was published. Only when I had a firm footing 
and wrote my next novel, " O. T.," — it was in the year 1837, 
— was " The Improvisatore " mentioned by the " Monthly 
Review : " then how I was scolded and reproved ! But this is 
not the place to speak of that. 



134 THE ST0RY 0F MY LIFE. 

It was from Germany that there came the first decided ac- 
knowledgment of the merits of my work, or rather, perhaps, 
its over-estimation. I bow myself in joyful gratitude, like a 
sick man toward the sunshine, when my heart is grateful. I 
am not, as the Danish " Monthly Review," in its critique of 
" The Improvisatore," condescended to assert, an unthankful 
man, who exhibits in his work a want of gratitude toward his 
benefactors. I was indeed myself poor Antonio, who sighed 
under the burden which I had to bear, — I, the poor lad who 
ate the bread of charity. From Sweden also, later, resounded 
my praise, and the Swedish newspapers contained articles in 
praise of this work, which within the last two years has been 
received with equal warmth in England, — where Mary 
Howitt, the poetess, has translated it into English. Every- 
where abroad was heard the loudest acknowledgment of its 
excellence. 

" This book is in romance what i Childe Harold ' is in 
poetry," — so it was criticised in England; and when, thirteen 
years after, I came for the first time to London, I heard of 
a generous criticism in the " Foreign Review," attributed to 
the son-in-law of Walter Scott, the able and critical Lockhart. 
I did not know anything about it ; I could not at that time 
read English ; and although it appeared in one of the most 
read and best known reviews that come to Copenhagen, it 
was not mentioned in any Danish newspaper. 

In North America also some English translations were after- 
ward published, and in 1844 there followed in St. Petersburg a 
Russian, translated from the Swedish, and another translation 
into Bohemian was also made. The book was warmly received 
in Holland, and the well known monthly u De Tijd " contained 
a very complimentary critique of it. 

In 1847 it was published in French, translated by Madame 
Lebrun, and was very favorably criticised ; its purity was 
especially taken notice of. 

There are in Germany seven or eight different editions of 
this romance, with various imprints. I must furthermore refer 
to the well known Hitzig's edition of Chamisso's works, in 
which the poet expresses his delight at my book, and ranks it 
higher than such works as " Notre Dame de Paris," " La 
•Salamandre," etc. 



THE STOR Y OF MY LIFE. 



135 



Then and during the years following, it was from without, 
so to speak, that the most hearty recognition came, and kept 
me up in spirit If Denmark really had a poet in me, then 
no one at home took any heed to my need of nourishment. 
While people frequently set out carefully in the hot-house 
some little blade of what they believe may come to have some 
sort of value, almost everyone has done, as it were, everything 
to prevent my growing. But our Lord willed it thus for my 
development, and therefore He sent the sun's rays from with- 
out, and let what I had written find its own way. 

There exists in the public a power which is stronger than 
all the critics and cliques. I felt that at home I stood on 
firmer ground, and my spirit again had moments in which it 
raised its wings for flight. 

A few months only after the publication of " The Improvisa- 
tor " I brought out the first part of my " Wonder Stories/' but 
the critics would not vouchsafe to me any encouragement ; they 
could not get away from their old preconceived notions. The 
" Monthly Review " never deigned to mention them at all, and 
in " Dannora," another critical journal, I was advised not to 
waste my time in writing wonder stories. I lacked the usual 
form of that kind of poetry ; I would not study models, said 
they — and so I gave up writing them ; and in this alternation 
of feeling between gayety and ill-humor I wrote my next 
novel, " O. T." I felt just at the time a strong mental im- 
pulse to write, and I believed that I had found my true ele- 
ment in novel-writing. 

There were published successively " The Improvisatore " in 
1835, " O. T. " in 1836, and " Only a Fiddler " in 1837. Many 
liked my " O. T.," especially H. C. Orsted, who had a great 
appreciation of humor. He encouraged me to continue in 
this direction, and from him and his family I met with the 
kindest acknowledgments. 

At Sibbern's, with whom I now had a personal acquaintance, 
I read " O. T." Poul Moller, who had just arrived from 
Norway, and was no admirer of my "Journey on Foot .to 
Amack," was present at one of my evening readings, and 
listened with great interest. The passages concerning Jut- 
land, the heath, and the Western Sea pleased him especially, 



I36 THE STORY OF MY LIFE^ 

and he praised them warmly. Some translations of " T." 
into German were afterward again translated into Swedish, 
Dutch, and English. " O. T." was read and again read, the 
book had its partisans, but the newspaper and journal critics 
did not show me any encouragement ; they forgot that with 
years the boy becomes a man, and that people may acquire 
knowledge in other than the ordinary ways. 

Many who had perhaps never read my last greater works, 
were the most severe judges, but not quite so honest as 
Heiberg, who, when I asked him if he had read these novels, 
answered me jokingly, " I never read great books ! " 

The year after (1837) appeared my romance, "Only a Fid- 
dler," a spiritual blossom sprung out of the terrible struggle 
that went on in me between my poet nature and my hard 
surroundings. Yet it was a step in advance. I understood my- 
self and the world better, but I was ready to give up expect- 
ing to receive any kind of true recognition of that which God 
had bestowed upon me. In another world it might be cleared 
up — that was my faith. If " The Improvisatore " was a real 
improvisatore, " Only a Fiddler " was then to be understood 
as struggle and suffering: this production was carefully 
wrought, and, looked at from without, it was conceived and 
executed with the greatest simplicity. The opposition that 
had stirred in me against injustice, folly, and the stupidity 
and hardness of the public, found vent in the characters of 
Naomi, Ladislaus, and the godfather in Hollow Lane. 

This book also made its way at home, but no word of thanks 
or encouragement was heard ; the critics only granted that I 
was very fortunate in trusting to my instinct, — an expression 
applied to animals, but in the human world, in the world of 
poetry, it is called genius ; for me instinct was good enough. 
There was a constant depreciation of all that was good in me. 
A single person of distinction told me once that I was treated 
very hardly and unjustly, but nobody stepped forward to de- 
nounce it. 

The novel " Only a Fiddler " made a strong impression for 
a short time on one of. our country's young and highly gifted 
men, Soren Kierkegaard. Meeting him in the street, he told 
me that he would write a review of my book, and that I should 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 37 

be more satisfied with that than I had been with the earlier, 
because, he said, they had misunderstood me ! A long time 
elapsed, then he read the book again, and the first good im- 
pression of it was effaced. I must almost believe that the 
more seriously he examined the story, the more faults he found ; 
and when the critique appeared, it did not please me at all. 
It came out as a whole book, the first, I believe, that Kierke- 
gaard has written \ and because of the Hegelian heaviness in 
the expression, it was very difficult to read, and people said in 
fun that only Kierkegaard and Andersen had read it through. 
I learned from it that I was no poet, but a poetical figure that 
had escaped from my group, in which my place would be taken 
by some future poet or be used by him as a figure in a poem, 
and that thus my supplement would be created ! Since that 
time I have had a better understanding with this author, who 
has always met me with kindness and discernment. That 
which contributed likewise to place this book in the shade 
was the circumstance of Heiberg having at that time pub- 
lished his " Every-day Stories," which were written in ex- 
cellent language, and with good taste and truth. Their own 
merits, and the recommendation of their being Heiberg's, who 
was the beaming star of literature, placed them in the highest 
rank. 

I had, however, advanced so far that there no longer existed 
any doubt as to my poetical ability, which people had wholly 
denied to me before my journey to Italy. Still not a single 
Danish critic had spoken of the characteristics which are 
peculiar to my novels. It was not until my works appeared 
in Swedish that this was done, and then several Swedish 
journals went profoundly into the subject, and analyzed my 
works with good and honorable intentions. The case was the 
same in Germany ; and from this country, too, my heart was 
strengthened to proceed. It was not until last year that in 
Denmark a man of influence, Hauch the poet, spoke of the 
novels in his already mentioned treatise, and with a few touches 
brought their characteristics prominently forward. 

" The principal thing," says he, " in Andersen's best and 
most elaborate works, in those which are distinguished for the 
richest fancy, the deepest feeling, the most lively poetic spirit, 






I38 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

is of talent, or at least of a noble nature, which will struggle 
its way out of narrow and depressing circumstances. This is 
the case with his three novels, and with this purpose in view 
it is really an important state of existence which he describes 
— an inner world, which no one understands better than he, 
who has himself drained out of the bitter cup of suffering and 
renunciation painful and deep feelings, which are closely re- 
lated to those of his own experience, and from which Memory, 
who, according to the old significant myth, is the mother of 
the Muses, met him hand in hand with them. That which he, 
in these his works, relates to the world, deserves assuredly to 
be listened to with attention ; because, at the same time that 
it may be only the most secret inward life of the individual, 
yet it is also the common lot of men of talent and genius, at 
least when these are in needy circumstances, as is the case of 
those who are here placed before our eyes. In so far as in 
his ' Improvisatore/ in ' O. T./ and in ' Only a Fiddler/ he 
represents not only himself, in his own separate individuality, 
but at the same time the momentous combat which so many 
have to pass through, and which he understands so well, be- 
cause in it his own life has developed itself ; therefore in no 
instance can he be said to present to the reader what belongs 
to the world of illusion, but only that which bears witness to 
truth, and which, as is the case with all such testimony, has a 
universal and enduring worth. 

"And still more than this, Andersen is not only the de- 
fender of talent and genius, but, at the same time, of every 
human heart which is unkindly and unjustly treated. And 
whilst he himself has so painfully suffered in that deep com- 
bat in which the Laocoon snakes seize upon the outstretched 
hand, — whilst he himself has been compelled to drink from 
that wormwood-steeped bowl which the cold-blooded and arro- 
gant world so constantly offers to those who are in depressed 
circumstances, he is fully capable of giving to his delineations 
in this respect a truth and an earnestness, nay, even a tragic 
and a pain-awakening pathos, that rarely fails of producing its 
effect on the sympathizing human heart. Who can read that 
scene in his ' Only a Fiddler/ in which the ' high-bred hound/ 
as the poet expresses it, turned away with disgust from the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 39 

broken victuals which the poor youth received as alms, with- 
out recognizing, at the same time, that this is no game in 
which vanity seeks for a triumph, but that it expresses much 
more — human nature wounded to its inmost depths, which 
here speaks out its sufferings ? " 

Thus is it spoken in Denmark of my works, after an inter- 
val of nine or ten years \ thus speaks the voice of a noble, 
venerated man. It is with me and the critics as it is with 
wine, — the more years pass before it is drunk, the better is 
its flavor. 

During the year in which the " Fiddler " came out, I visited 
for the first time the neighboring country of Sweden. I went 
by the Gota canal to Stockholm. At that time nobody under- 
stood what is now called Scandinavian sympathies ; there 
still existed a sort of mistrust inherited from the old wars be- 
tween the two neighbor nations. Little was known of Swed- 
ish literature, and yet it required little pains for a Dane easily 
to read and understand the Swedish language ; people scarce- 
ly knew Tegner's " Frithiof and Axel," excepting through 
translations. I had, however, read a few other Swedish au- 
thors, and the deceased, unfortunate Stagnelius pleased me 
more as a poet than Tegner, who represented poetry in 
Sweden. I, who hitherto had only travelled into Germany 
and southern countries, where by this means the departure 
from Copenhagen was also the departure from my mother 
tongue, felt, in this respect, almost at home in Sweden : the 
languages are so much akin, that of two persons each might 
read in the language of his own country, and yet the other 
understand him. It seemed to me, as a Dane, that Denmark 
expanded itself; kinship with the people exhibited itself in 
many ways, more and more ; and I felt in a lively degree how 
near akin are Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. 

I met with cordial, kind people, and with these I easily 
made acquaintance. I reckon this journey among the hap- 
piest I ever made. I had no knowledge of the character of 
Swedish scenery, and therefore I was in the highest degree 
astonished by the Trollhatta voyage, and by the extremely 
picturesque situation of Stockholm. It sounds to the unini- 
tiated half like a fairy tale, when one says that the steamboat 



I4O THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

goes up across the lakes over the mountains, from whence 
may be seen the outstretched pine and beech woods below. 
Immense sluices heave up and lower the vessel again, whilst 
the travellers ramble through the woods. None of the cas- 
cades of Switzerland, none in Italy, not even that of Terni, 
have in them anything so imposing as that of Trollhatta. 
Such is the impression, at all events, which it made on me. 

On this journey, and at this last-mentioned place, com- 
menced a very interesting acquaintance, and one which has 
not been without its influence on me, — an acquaintance with 
the Swedish authoress, Fredrika Bremer. I had just been 
speaking with the captain of the steamboat and some of the 
passengers about the Swedish authors living in Stockholm, 
and I mentioned my desire to see and converse with Miss 
Bremer. 

" You will not meet with her," said the captain, " as she is 
at this moment on a visit in Norway." 

" She will be coming back while I am there," said I in 
joke; "I always am lucky in my journeys, and that which I 
most wish for is always accomplished." 

" Hardly this time, however," said the captain. 

A few hours after this he came up to me laughing, with the 
list of the newly arrived passengers in his hand. " Lucky 
fellow," said he aloud, "you take good fortune with you ; Miss 
Bremer is here, and sails with us to Stockholm." 

I received it as a joke ; he showed me the list, but still I 
was uncertain. Among the new arrivals I could see no one 
who resembled an authoress. Evening came on, and about 
midnight we were on the great Wener Lake. At sunrise I 
wished to have a view of this extensive lake, the shores of 
which could scarcely be seen ; and for this purpose I left the 
cabin. At the very moment that I did so, another passenger 
was also doing the same, — a lady neither young nor old, 
wrapped in a shawl and cloak. I thought to myself, if Miss 
Bremer is on board, this must be she, and fell into discourse 
with her ; she replied politely, but still distantly, nor would 
she directly answer my question whether she was the author- 
ess of the celebrated novels. She asked after my name ; was 
acquainted with it, but confessed that she had read none of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I4I 

my works. She then inquired whether I had not some of 
them with me, and I lent her a copy of " The Improvisatore/' 
which I had destined for Beskow. She vanished immediately 
with the volumes, and was not again visible all morning. 

When I again saw her, her countenance was beaming, and 
she was full of cordiality \ she pressed my hand, and said that 
she had read the greater part of the first volume, and that she 
now knew me. 

The vessel flew with us across the mountains, through quiet 
inland lakes and forests, till it arrived at the Baltic Sea, where 
islands lie scattered, as in the Archipelago, and where the 
most remarkable transition takes place from naked cliffs to 
grassy islands, and to those on which stand trees and houses. 
Eddies and breakers make it here necessary to take on board 
a skillful pilot ; and there are indeed some places where every 
passenger must sit quietly on his seat, whilst the eye of the 
pilot is riveted upon one point. On shipboard one feels the 
might}- power of nature, which at one moment seizes hold of 
the vessel, and the next lets it go again. Miss Bremer related 
many legends and many histories which were connected with 
this or that island, or those farm premises up aloft on the 
main -land. 

In Stockholm the acquaintance with her increased, and 
year after year the letters which have passed between us have 
strengthened it. She is a noble woman \ the great truths of 
religion, and the poetry which lies in the quiet circumstances 
of life, have penetrated her being. 

It was not until after my visit to Stockholm that her Swed- 
ish translation of my novel came out ; my lyrical poems only, 
and my " Journey on Foot," were known to a few authors ■ 
*hese received me with the utmost kindness, and the lately 
deceased Dahlgren, well known by his humorous poems, 
wrote a song in my honor — in short, I met with hospitality, 
and countenances beaming with Sunday gladness. 

I had brought with me a letter of introduction from Or- 
sted to the celebrated Berzelius, who gave me a good recep- 
tion in the old city of Upsala. From this place I returned to 
Stockholm. City, country, and people were all dear to me , 
it seemed to me. as I said before, that the boundaries of mv 



142 THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

native land had stretched themselves out, and I now first felt 
the kindredship of the three peoples, and in this feeling I 
wrote a Scandinavian song. In this poem there was nothing 
of politics : politics I have nothing to do with. The poet is 
not to serve politics, but go before movements like a prophet. 
It was a hymn of praise for all the three nations, for that 
which was peculiar and best in each one of them. 

" One can see that the Swedes made a deal of him," was 
the first remark which I heard at home on this song. 

Years pass on ; the neighbors understand each other bet- 
ter ; Oehlenschlager, Fredrika Bremer, and Tegner cause 
them to read each other's authors ; and the foolish remains 
of the old enmity, which had no other foundation than that 
they did not know each other, vanished. There now prevails 
a beautiful, cordial relationship between Sweden. and Den- 
mark. A Scandinavian club has been established in Stock- 
holm ; and with this my song came to honor ; and it was 
then said, " It will outlive everything that Andersen has 
written : " which was as unjust as when they said that it was 
only the product of flattered vanity. This song is now sung 
in Sweden as well as in Denmark. 

On my return home I began to study history industriously, 
and made myself still further acquainted with the literature of 
foreign countries. Yet still the volume which afforded me 
the greatest pleasure was that of nature ; and during a sum- 
mer residence among the country seats of Funen, and more 
especially at Lykkesholm, with its highly romantic site in the 
midst of woods, and at the noble seat of Glorup, from whose 
possessor I met with the most friendly reception, did I acquire 
more true wisdom, assuredly, in my solitary rambles, than I 
ever could have gained from the schools. 

The house of the Conference Councilor Collin in Copen- 
hagen was at that time, as it has been since, a second father's 
house to me, and there I had parents, and brothers, and sisters. 
It was here that the humor and love of life observable in 
various passages of the novel " O. T.," and in the little dra- 
matic pieces written about this time, for instance, " The Invis- 
ible at Sprogo," had their origin, and where much good was 
done to me in this respect, so that my morbid turn of mind 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 143 

was unable to gain the mastery of me. Collin's eldest daugh- 
ter, Madame Ingeborg Drewsen, especially exercised great 
influence over me, by her merry humor and wit. When the 
mind is yielding and elastic, like the expanse of ocean, it 
readily, like the ocean, reflects its surroundings. 

I was very productive, and my writings, in my own country, 
were now classed among those which were always bought and 
read ; therefore for each fresh work I received a higher pay- 
ment. Yet truly, when you consider what a circumscribed 
world the Danish reading world is, and that I was not, when 
looked at from Heiberg's and the " Monthly's " balcony, ac- 
knowledged as a poet of the time, you will see that this pay- 
ment could not be the most liberal. Yet I had to live. I 
call to my mind how astonished Charles Dickens was at hear- 
ing of the payment I had received for "The Improvisators " 

"What did you get?" asked he. I answered, "Nineteen 
pounds ! " — " For the sheet ? " he inquired. " No," said I, 
"for the whole book." — "We must be misunderstanding each 
other," continued he ; " you don't mean to say that for the 
whole work, 'The Improvisatore,' you have only nineteen 
pounds ; you must mean for each sheet ! " I was sorry to 
tell him that it was not the case, and that I had only got 
about half a pound a sheet. 

" I should really not believe it," exclaimed he, " if you had 
not told it yourself." 

To be sure, Dickens did not know anything about our cir- 
cumstances in Denmark, and measured the payment with 
what he got for his works in England ; but it is very probable 
that my English translator gained more than I, the author. 
But after all, I lived, though in want. 

To write, and always to write, in order to live, I felt would 
be destructive to me, and my attempts to acquire some kind 
of situation failed. I tried to get a situation in the royal 
library. H. C. Orsted supported warmly my petition to the 
director of the library, the grand- chamberlain Hauch. Orsted 
ended his written testimony, after having mentioned H. C. 
Andersen's " merits as a poet," by — " He is characterized by- 
uprightness, and by a regularity and exactness which many 
think cannot be found in a poet, but will be conceded to him 
by those who know him ! " 



144 THE ST0RY 0F MY LIFE. 

These words of Orsted about me did not, however, produce 
any effect ; the grand chamberlain dismissed me with great 
politeness, saying that I was too highly endowed for such a 
trivial work as that in the library. I tried to form an engage- 
ment with the Society for promoting the Liberty of the Press, 
having planned and made a design for a Danish popular 
almanac, like the very renowned German one of Gubitz : no 
Danish popular almanac existed here at that time. I be- 
lieved that my pictures of nature in " The Improvisatore " had 
proved my capability for this kind of productions, and that my 
"Wonder Stories/' which I had then commenced to publish, 
might show them that I could tell stories too. 

Orsted was very well pleased with the plan, and supported 
it in the best way, but the committee decided that the work 
would be burdened with too many and too great difficulties 
for the society to engage in it. In other words, they had no 
confidence in my ability \ but afterward such an almanac was 
published by another editor, under the auspices of the society. 

I was always forced, in order to live, to think of the mor- 
row. One hospitable house more was in these days opened 
for me, that of the old, now deceased, widow Bugel, nee 
Adzer. Conference Councilor Collin was, however, at that 
time, my help, my consolation, my support, and he is one of 
those men who do more than they promise. I suffered want 
and poverty — but I have no wish to speak of it here. I 
thought, however, as I did in the years of my boyhood, that 
when it seems to be hardest for us, our Lord brings us help ! 
I have a star of fortune, and it is God ! 

One day, as I sat in my little room, somebody knocked at 
the door, and a stranger with beautiful and amiable features 
stood before me : it was the late Count Conrad Rantzau-Brei- 
tenburg, a native of Holstein and Prime Minister in Denmark. 
He loved poetry, was in love with the beauty of Italy, and was 
desirous of making acquaintance with the author of " The Im- 
provisatore." He read my book in the original \ his imagina 
tion was powerfully seized by it, and he spoke, both at court 
and in his own private circles, of my book in the warmest 
manner. He was of a noble, amiable nature, a highly edu- 
cated man, and possessed of a truly chivalrous disposition. In 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 45 

his youth he had travelled much, and spent a long time in 
Spain and Italy; his judgment was therefore of great impor- 
tance to me. He did not stop here ; he sought me out. He 
stepped quietly into my little room, thanked me for my book, 
besought me to visit him, and frankly asked me whether there 
were no means by which he could be of use to me. 

I hinted how oppressive it was to be forced to write in or- 
der to live, and not move free from care, to be able to de- 
velop one's mind and thoughts. He pressed my hand in a 
friendly manner, and promised to be an efficient friend, and 
that he became. Collin and H. C. Orsted secretly associated 
themselves with him, and became my intercessors with King 
Frederick VI. 

Already for many years there had existed, under Frederick 
VI., an institution which does the highest honor to the Danish 
government, namely, that beside the considerable sum ex- 
pended yearly for the travelling expenses of young literary 
men and artists, a small pension shall be awarded to such of 
them as enjoy no office emoluments. All our most important 
poets have had a share of this assistance, — Oehlenschlager, 
Ingemann, Heiberg, C. Winther, and others. Hertz had just 
then received such a pension, and his future subsistence was 
made thus the more secure. It was my hope and my wish that 
the same good fortune might be mine — and it was. Frederick 
VI. granted me two hundred rix-dollars banco yearly. I was 
filled with gratitude and joy. I was no longer forced to write 
in order to live; I had a sure support in the possible event of 
sickness ; I was less dependent upon the people about me. 

A new chapter of my life began. 



10 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FROM this day forward, it was as if a more constant sun- 
shine had entered my heart. I felt within myself more 
repose, more certainty ; it was clear to me, as I glanced back 
over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over 
me, that all was directed for me by a higher Power ; and the 
firmer such a conviction becomes, the more secure does a man 
feel himself.. My childhood lay behind me, my youthful life 
began properly from this period ; hitherto it had been only an 
arduous swimming against the stream. The spring of my life 
commenced ; but still the spring had its dark days, its storms, 
before it advanced to settled summer ; it has these in order to 
develop what shall then ripen. 

That which one of my dearest friends wrote to me on one 
of my later travels abroad, may serve as an introduction to 
what I have here to relate. He wrote in his own peculiar 
style : " It is your vivid imagination which creates the idea 
of your being despised in Denmark ; it is utterly untrue. You 
and Denmark agree admirably, and you would agree still bet- 
ter, if there were in Denmark no theatre — Hinc illce. lachry- 
mce- ! This cursed theatre. Is this, then, Denmark ? and are 
' you, then, nothing but a writer for the theatre ? " 

Herein lies a solid truth. The theatre has been the cave 
out of which most of the evil storms have burst upon me. 
They are peculiar people, these people of the theatre ; from the 
first pantomimist to the first lover, every one places himself 
systematically in one scale, and puts all the world in the 
other. The pit's circle is the boundary of the world \ the cri- 
tiques in the newspapers are the fixed stars of the universe ; 
if applause now resounds, soon it is only idle babble and the 
repetitions of what others have said ; is it not, then, natural 
and pardonable to grow giddy over a reputation which is 
really sound ? 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



147 



As politics at that time did not play' any part with us, the 
theatre furnished the chief topic of the daily and nightly con- 
versations. The royal Danish theatre might indeed be placed 
on a level with the first theatres in Europe ; it possessed emi- 
nent talent. Nielsen was then in the vigor of youth, and be- 
sides his ability as an artist he possessed an organ of speech 
which was like very music, delivering the words in a way to 
bewitch one. The Danish stage had then Dr. Ryge, who by 
his person, genius, and voice, was especially fitted to act in 
the tragedies of Oehlenschlager. The stage possessed in Fry- 
dendal a rare impersonation of wit and humor, characterized 
by education and gentility. Stage was a complete cavalier, a 
true gentleman, and had a ready wit in playing comic roles. 
Besides those, we possessed actors of talent still living, — 
Madame Heiberg, Madame Nielsen, Mr. Rosenkilde, and Mr. 
Phister. We had at that time an opera, and the ballet began 
to flourish under the leading of Bournonville. 

As I have before said, our theatre was one of the first 
stages of Europe, but we cannot therefore assert that all who 
gave it direction were true leaders, although some of them as- 
sumed to be such ; at least so it seemed to me, because they 
did not pay much regard to authors. I believe that the Dan- 
ish theatre always has been in want of a kind of military dis- 
cipline, and this is absolutely necessary where many interests 
have to be combined into a whole, — even when that whole is 
an artistic one. I have always observed the same dissatisfac- 
tion on the part of the public toward the directors of the thea- 
tre, especially as regards the choice of pieces, as exists between 
the directors and the actors. It could not be, perhaps, other- 
wise, and all young authors, who like me do not enjoy the 
favor of the hour, will have to suffer and struggle under the 
same circumstances. Even Oehlenschlager suffered much, 
was overlooked, or, it seemed to me, was at least not treated as 
he ought to have been. The actors were applauded, he was 
hissed. How have I not heard my countrymen speak of that 
genius ! Well, it may perhaps be so in all countries, but how 
sad that it should be so. Oehlenschlager relates himself that 
his children at school had to listen to the unkind words of the 
other boys at having such a father as he was ; and they talked 
only as they heard their parents talk. 



I48 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Those actors and actresses who, through talent or popular 
favor, take the first rank, very often assume to be above both 
the directors and authors ; these must pay court to them, or 
they will ruin a part, or, what is still worse, spread abroad 
an unfavorable opinion of the piece previous to its being acted ; 
and thus you have a coffee-house criticism before any one 
ought properly to know anything of the work. It is moreover 
characteristic of the people of Copenhagen, that when a new 
piece is announced, they do not say, " I am glad of it," but 
. " It will probably be good for nothing ; it will be hissed off the 
stage." That hissing off plays a great part, and is an amuse- 
ment which fills the house ; but it is not the bad actor who 
is hissed ; no, the author and the composer only are the crim- 
inals ; for them the scaffold is erected. Five minutes is the 
usual time, and the whistles resound, and the lovely women 
smile and felicitate themselves, like the Spanish ladies at their 
bloody bull-fights. 

For a number of years November and December were al- 
ways the most dangerous time for a new piece, because the 
young scholars were then made " Students/' and, having 
cleared the fence of "artium," were very severe judges. All 
our most eminent dramatic writers have been whistled down, 
— as Oehlenschlager, Heiberg, Hertz, and others ; to say 
nothing of foreign classics, as Moliere. 

In the mean time the theatre is and was the most profitable 
sphere of labor for the Danish writer. When I stood without 
help and support this induced me to make a trial, and to write 
the opera text already spoken of, — for which I was so severely 
criticised ; and an internal impulse drove me also to try my 
powers in writing vaudevilles. The authors were then poorly 
paid, until Collin took charge of the theatre as manager. 
There are things we call facts, which cannot be effaced, and I 
must mention them. A well known, very able business man, 
was made director of the theatre. A good arrangement in 
many things was looked for because he was a clever account- 
ant ) and there was also an anticipation that the opera would 
flourish because he had a good ear for music, sang in musical 
circles, and thus energetic changes were expected ; among 
these changes was a regulation as to the pay for the pieces 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 49 

As it was a difficult matter to judge of their value it was 
decided that they should be paid for according to their length \ 
at the first representation of a piece, the manager stood with 
a watch in his hand and noted down how many quarters of an 
hour it took to go through with it ; these were added together, 
and the payment was regulated by the sum. If the last quar- 
ter of an hour was not all taken by the piece it fell to the 
theatre : was not that a very business-like and well contrived 
plan ? Everybody thinks of number one, and that was the 
case with me. I needed every shilling, and therefore I suf- 
fered a heavy loss when my vaudeville, " Parting and Meet- 
ing," which was divided into two acts, with separate titles, 
was considered as two vaudevilles, and according to the man- 
ager's opinion could even as well be given separately. But 
" we must not speak evil of our magistrate," and the directory 
of the theatre is the dramatic poet's magistrate, whereas some 
of the personages — but I will let them speak for themselves ! 

Collin was no longer manager of the theatre, — Counselor 
of Justice Molbech had taken his place; and the tyranny which 
now commenced degenerated into the comic. I fancy that in 
course of time the manuscript volumes of the censorship, 
which are preserved in the theatre, and in which Molbech has 
certainly recorded his judgments on received and rejected 
pieces, will present some remarkable characteristics. Over 
all that I wrote the staff was broken ! One way was open to 
me by which to bring my pieces on the stage ; and that was 
to give them to those actors who in summer gave representa- 
tions at their own cost. In the summer of 1839 I wrote the 
vaudeville of " The Invisible One at Sprogo," to scenery 
which had been painted for another piece which fell through ; 
and the unrestrained merriment of the piece gave it such favor 
with the public that I obtained its acceptance by the mana- 
ger 1 and that light sketch still maintains itself on the boards, 
and has survived such a number of representations as I had 
never anticipated. 

This approbation, however, procured me no further advan- 
tage, for each of my succeeding dramatic works received only 
rejection, and occasioned me only mortification. Neverthe- 
less, seized by the idea and the circumstances of the little 



I5O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

French narrative, " Les Epaves," I determined to dramatize 
it ; and as I had often heard that I did not possess the as- 
siduity sufficient to work my materiel well, I resolved to labor 
this drama — " The Mulatto " — from the beginning to the 
end in the most diligent manner, and to compose it in alter- 
nately rhyming verse, as was then the fashion. It was a for- 
eign subject of which I availed myself; but if verses are 
music, I at least endeavored to adapt my music to the text, 
and to let the poetry of another diffuse itself through my spir- 
itual blood 1 so that people should not be heard to say, as 
they had done before, regarding the romance of Walter Scott, 
that the composition was cut down and fitted to the stage. 

The piece was ready and was read to several able men, old 
friends, and to some of the actors also who were to appear in 
it ; they declared it excellent, and very interesting ; especially 
Mr. William Hoist, whom I wished to act the principal part ; 
he was one of the artists on the stage who met me kindly and 
generously, and to whom I ought to express my thanks and 
acknowledgment. In the antechamber of Frederick VI. one 
of our government officers from the West Indies spoke against 
the piece, saying that he had heard it ought not to be admitted 
on the royal stage, because it might have a pernicious influ- 
ence upon the blacks of our West Indian islands. " But this 
piece is not to be represented at the West Indies," was the 
reply. 

The piece was sent in, and was rejected by Molbech. It 
was sufficiently known that what he cherished for the boards, 
withered there the first evening \ but that what he cast away 
as weeds were flowers for the garden — a real consolation for 
me. The assistant-manager, Privy Counselor of State Adler, 
a man of taste and liberality, became the patron of my work ; 
and since a very favorable opinion of it already prevailed with 
the public, after I had read it to many persons, it was resolved 
on for representation. 

Before the piece was represented on the stage there oc- 
curred a little scene, as characteristic as amusing, which I will 
relate here. There was a very brave man, but a man of no 
artistic knowledge, whose judgment of the piece, however, 
might turn the scale : he told me that he Was well disposed 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 151 

toward me, but that he had not yet read my piece ; that there 
were many who spoke well of it, but that Molbech had written 
a whole sheet against it. " And now I must also tell you/' he 
added, " that it is copied from a novel. You write novels your- 
self ; why do you not yourself invent a story for your piece ? 
Then I must remind you that to write novels is one thing and 
to write comedies another. In these there must be theatrical 
effect \ is there any such in ' The Mulatto/ and if so is it any 
thing new ? " I tried to enter into the ideas of the man, and 
answered, — " There is a ball ! " 

"Yes, that is very well, but that we have in ' The Bride : ' 
is there not something brand-new }"■ — " There is a slave-mar- 
ket!" said I. a A slave-market: that I think we have not 
had before ! Well, that is something, I shall be just toward 
you. I like that slave-market ! " And I think that this slave- 
market threw the last necessary yes in the urn for the accep- 
tance of " The Mulatto." 

I had the honor to read it before my present King and 
Queen, who received me in a very kind and friendly manner, 
and from whom, since that time, I have experienced many 
proofs of favor and cordiality. The day of representation 
arrived \ the bills were posted • I had not closed my eyes 
through the whole night from excitement and expectation 5 
the people already stood in throngs before the theatre, to pro- 
cure tickets, when royal messengers galloped through the 
streets, solemn groups collected, the minute guns pealed — 
Frederick VI. had died that morning ! 

The death was proclaimed from the balcony of the palace 
of Amalienborg, and hurrahs were given for Christian VIII., 
the gates of the city were closed, and the army swore alle- 
giance. Frederick VI. belonged to the patriarchal age \ the 
generation that had grown up with him had not before suffered 
the loss of a king, and the sorrow and seriousness were great 
and sincere. 

For two months more was the theatre closed, and was 
opened under Christian VIII., with my drama, " The Mu- 
latto " \ which was received with the most triumphant acclama- 
tion \ but I could not at once feel the joy of it, I felt only re- 
lieved from a state of excitement, and breathed more freely. 



I52 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

This piece continued through a series of representations to 
receive the same approbation* ; many placed this work far 
above all my former ones, and considered that with it began 
my proper poetical career. It was soon translated into Swed- 
ish, and acted with applause at the royal theatre in Stock- 
holm. Travelling players introduced it into the smaller 
towns in the neighboring country ; a Danish company gave it 
in the original language, in the Swedish city Malmo, and a 
troop of students from the university town of Lund welcomed 
it with enthusiasm. I had been for a week previous on a 
visit at some Swedish country-houses, where I was entertained 
with so much cordial kindness that the recollection of it* will 
never quit my bosom ; and there, in a foreign country, I received 
the first public testimony of honor, which has left upon me 
the deepest and most inextinguishable impression. I was in- 
vited by some students of Lund to visit their ancient town. 
Here a public dinner was given to me ; speeches were made, 
toasts were pronounced ; and as I was in the evening in a 
family circle, I was informed that the students meant to honor 
me with a serenade. 

I felt myself actually overcome by this intelligence ; my 
heart throbbed feverishly as I descried the thronging troop, 
with their blue caps, approaching the house arm-in-arm. I 
experienced a feeling of humiliation ; a most lively conscious- 
ness of my deficiencies, so that I seemed bowed to the very 
earth at the moment others were elevating me. As they all 
uncovered their heads while I stepped forth, I had need of all 
my thoughts to avoid bursting into tears. In the feeling that 
I was unworthy of all this, I glanced round to see whether a 
smile did not pass over the face of some one, but I could dis- 
cern nothing of the kind ; and such a discovery would, at that 
moment, have inflicted on me the deepest wound. 

After a hurra, a speech was delivered, of which I clearly 
recollect the following words : " When your native land and 
the nations of Europe offer you their homage, then may you 
never forget that the first public honors were conferred on you 
by the students of Lund." 

When the heart is warm, the strength of the expression is 
not weighed. I felt it deeply, and replied, that from this 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



15; 



moment I became aware that I must assert a name in order 
to render myself worthy of these tokens of honor. I pressed 
the hands of those nearest to me, and returned them thanks 
so deep, so heartfelt, — certainly never was an expression of 
thanks more sincere. When I returned to my chamber, I 
went aside, in order to weep out this excitement, this over- 
whelming sensation. " Think no more of it, be joyous with 
us," said some of my lively Swedish friends ; but a deep 
earnestness had entered my soul. Often has the memory of 
this time come back to me ; and no noble-minded man who 
reads these pages will discover vanity in the. fact that I have 
lingered so long over this moment of life, which scorched the 
roots of pride rather than nourished them. 

My drama was now to be brought on the stage at Malmo ; 
the students wished to see it \ but I hastened my departure, 
that I might not be in the theatre at the time. With gratitude 
and joy fly my thoughts toward the Swedish University city, 
but I myself have not been there again since. In the Swedish 
newspapers the honors paid me were mentioned, and it was 
added that the Swedes were not unaware that in my own 
country there was a clique which persecuted me ; but that this 
should not hinder my neighbors from offering me the honors 
which they deemed my due. 

It was when I had returned to Copenhagen that I first truly 
felt how cordially I had been received by the Swedes : amongst 
some of my old and tried friends I found the most genuine 
sympathy. I saw tears in their eyes, — tears of joy for the 
honors paid me ; and especially, said they, for the manner in 
which I had received them. There is but one manner for 
me j at once, in the midst of joy, I fly with thanks to God. 

There were certain persons who smiled at the enthusiasm, 
and others who liked to turn it into ridicule. The poet 
Heiberg said ironically to me, — " When I go to Sweden you 
must go with me, that I also may get a little attention ! " I 
did not like the joke, and answered, — "Take your wife with 
you and you will get it easier." 

From Sweden there came only enthusiasm for " The Mulat- 
to," while at home certain voices raised themselves against it : 
" the material was merely borrowed, and I had not mentioned 



154 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

that on the printed title-page." That was an accidental fault. 
I had written it upon the last page of the manuscript, bu- as 
the drama itself closed with the printed sheet, a new sheet 
would have had to be printed in order to include that no.'e. I 
consulted one of our poets, who thought it entirely super.iuous, 
because the novel " Les Epaves " was much read and known. 
Heiberg himself, when he wrote over again " The Fairies," by 
Tieck, did not mention with a single word the rich source from 
which he took it. But here he laid hands on me ; t?ie French 
narrative was scrupulously studied and compared with my 
piece. A translation of " Les Epaves " was sent to the editor 
of " The Portefeuille/' with urgent request that it should be 
inserted. The editor let me know of it, and I begged him of 
course to publish it. The piece continued to have a good run 
on the stage, but the criticism diminished the value of my work. 
That exaggerated praise which I had received, now made me 
sensitive to the blame ; I could bear it less easily than before, 
and saw more clearly that it did not spring out of an interest 
in the matter, but was only uttered in order to mortify me. 
In the newly published novel, also, by the author of " Every- 
day Stories," the admiration for " The Mulatto " was laughed 
at The idea of the victory of genius, which I had expressed 
there, was considered only an idle fancy. 

For the rest, my mind was fresh and elastic ; I conceived 
precisely at this time the idea of " The Picture-Book without 
Pictures," and worked it out. This little book appears, to 
judge by the reviews and the number of editions, to have ob- 
tained an extraordinary popularity in Germany. One of those 
who first announced it, added, — " Many of these pictures 
offer material for narratives and novels — yes, one gifted with 
fancy might create romances out of them.". Madame von 
Gohren has in her first romance, " The Adopted Daughter," 
really borrowed the material from " The Picture-Book with- 
out Pictures." In Sweden, also, was my book translated, and 
dedicated to myself; at home it was less esteemed, and so far 
as I remember it was only Mr. Siesby, who, in the " Copen- 
hagen Morning Journal," granted it a few kind words. A 
couple of translations appeared in England, and the English 
critics gave the little book very high praise, calling it "an 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 55 

Iliad in a nutshell ! " From England, as also later from Ger- 
many, I have seen a proof-sheet of the same book in a splen- 
did edition, which changed it to a " Picture-Book without , 
Pictures " with pictures. 

At home people did not set much store by the little book, 
they talked only of " The Mulatto ; " and finally, only of the 
borrowed materiel of it. I determined, therefore, to produce 
a new dramatic work, in which both subject and development, 
in fact everything, should be of my own conception. I had 
the idea and now wrote the tragedy of " The Moorish Maiden," 
hoping through this to stop the mouths of all my detractors, 
and to assert my place as a dramatic poet. I hoped, too, 
through the income from this, together with the proceeds of 
"The Mulatto," to be able to make afresh journey, not only to 
Italy, but to Greece and Turkey. My first going abroad had 
more than all beside operated toward my intellectual develop- 
ment ; I was therefore full of the passion for travel, and of 
the endeavor to acquire more knowledge of nature and of 
human life. 

My new piece did not please Heiberg, nor indeed my 
dramatic efforts at all \ his wife — for whom the chief part 
appeared to me especially to be adapted — refused, and that 
not in the most friendly manner, to play it. Deeply wounded 
I went forth. I lamented this to some individuals. Whether 
this was repeated, or whether a complaint against the favorite 
of the public is a crime, — enough : from this hour Heiberg 
became my opponent, — he whose intellectual rank I so highly 
estimated, — he with whom I would so willingly have allied 
myself, — and he who so often — I will venture to say it — I 
had approached with the whole sincerity of my nature. I 
have constantly declared his wife to be so distinguished an 
actress, and continue still so entirely of this opinion, that I 
would not hesitate one moment to assert that she would have 
a European reputation, were the Danish language as widely 
diffused as the German or the French. In tragedy she is, by 
the spirit and the geniality with which she comprehends and 
fills any part, a most interesting artist ; and in comedy she 
stands unrivaled. 

The wrong may be on my side or not, — no matter : a party 



I56 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

was opposed to me. I felt myself wounded, excited by many 
coincident annoyances there. I felt uncomfortable in my na- 
tive country — yes, almost ill. I therefore left my piece to its 
fate, and, suffering and disconcerted, I hastened forth. In 
this mood I wrote a prologue to "The Moorish Maiden," 
which betrayed my irritated mind far too palpably. If I 
would represent this portion of my life more clearly and 
reflectively, it would require me to penetrate the mysteries 
of the theatre, to analyze our aesthetic cliques, and to drag 
into conspicuous notice many individuals who do not belong 
to publicity. Many persons in my place would, like me, have 
fallen ill, or would have resented it vehemently : perhaps the 
latter would have been the most sensible. The best thing for 
me was to go away, and that was also the wish of my friends. 
" Be of good cheer, and try as soon as possible to get away 
from that gossip ! " wrote Thorwaldsen to me from Nyso. 
" I hope to see you here before you go away ; if not, then we 
must see each other in Rome ! " — " For heaven's sake, set 
out ! " said my sincere and sympathizing friends, who knew 
how I suffered. H. C. Orsted, also, and Collin fortified me in 
my purpose, and Oehlenschlager sent me in a poem his greet- 
ing for the journey. 

My friend, the poet H. P. Hoist, was also going abroad ; 
his poem, " O my country, what hast thou lost ! " was in every 
one's mouth ; he had in a few affectionate and plain words 
told what every one felt. The death of King Frederick VI. 
was a national grief, a family sorrow, and this beautiful poem, 
which so naturally expressed it, took a strong hold of the 
people. Hoist was the happy poet of the day ; without any 
difficulty, without offering any testimonies, he got a travel- 
ling pension. This is said without any bitterness against him. 
His many friends in the Students' Union got up a good-by 
supper for him, and this suggested the same compliment 
to me ; and amongst the elder ones who were present to re- 
ceive me were Collin, Oehlenschlager, and Orsted. This was 
somewhat of sunshine in the midst of my mortification ; songs 
by Oehlenschlager and Hillerup were sung ; and I found cor- 
diality and friendship, as I quitted my country in distress. 
This was in October of 1840. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



157 



For the second time I went to Italy and Rome, to Greece 
and Constantinople — a journey which I have described after 
my own manner in " A Poet's Bazaar." 

In Holstein I continued some days with Count Rantzau- 
Breitenburg, whose ancestral castle I now for the first time 
visited. Here I became acquainted with the rich scenery of 
Holstein, its heath and moorland. Although it was late in the 
autumn we had fine days. One day I visited the neighboring 
village of Miinsterdorph, where the author of " Siegfried von 
Lindenberg," Miiller von Itzehoe, is buried. 

A railway between Magdeburg and Leipsic was now built. 
It was the first time I had seen and travelled upon such 
a one, and it was a real event in my life. In my " Poet's 
Bazaar " you may read of the powerful impression it made on 
me. 

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy lived in Leipsic, and I wished to 
pay him a visit. Collin's daughter and his son-in-law, Coun- 
selor of State Drewsen, had the year before brought me a 
greeting from Mendelssohn. When on the Rhine they heard 
that he was aboard the steamer, and as they knew and loved 
him as a composer they spoke to him. When he heard that 
they were Danes his first question was whether they knew the 
Danish poet, Andersen. " I consider him as my brother," said 
Madame Drewsen, and that was a point of connection. Men- 
delssohn told them that they had read to him while he was 
sick my novel, " Only a Fiddler." The book had amused him 
and awakened an interest in the author. He begged them to 
give me his best compliments, and added that I must not 
fail to come and see him when I passed through Leipsic. 
Now I arrived here but only to stay one day. I went in 
search of Mendelssohn immediately : he was at rehearsal in the 
" Gewandhaus." I did not send in my name, only that a trav- 
eler was very anxious to call on him; and he came, but was, I 
observed, very much vexed, for he was in some perplexity about 
his work. " I have but very little time, and I really cannot 
talk here with strangers ! " said he. " You have invited me 
yourself," answered I \ " you have told me that I must not pass 
through the city without seeing you ! " — " Andersen ! " cried 
he now, " is it you ? " and his whole countenance beamed ; he 



I58 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

embraced me, drew me into the concert-room, and urged me to 
be present at the rehearsal of the Seventh Symphony of Bee- 
thoven. Mendelssohn wished to keep me to dinner, but I was 
to dine with my older friend, Brockhaus. Immediately after 
dinner the diligence started for Niirnberg. But I promised 
him to stay on my return a couple of days in Leipsic, and I 
kept my promise. 

In Niirnberg I saw for the first time daguerreotype pictures : 
they told me that these portraits were taken in ten minutes ; 
that seemed to me a bit of witchcraft ; the art Was new 7 then, 
and far from what it is nowadays. Daguerreotypes and the 
railway were the two new flowers of the age. 

By the railway I started for Munich, to see old acquaintances 
and friends. I met with many countrymen here : Blunck, 
Kiellerup, Wegener, the animal painter Holm, Marstrand, 
Storch, Holbech, and the poet Hoist, with whom I was from 
here to travel to Italy. 

We remained a couple of weeks in Munich and lodged to- 
gether. He was a very good comrade, affable and sympathizing. 
With him I visited sometimes the artists' coffee-house, — a Ba- 
varian reflex of the life in Rome ; but there was no wine, only 
beer which frothed in the glasses. I had no great pleasure 
here, and among my countrymen were none who interested me ; 
and I was no doubt judged as a poet much after the Copen- 
hagen scale. 

Hoist was, however, better treated by them. I therefore 
usually went alone my own solitary walk, sometimes in full 
strength of body and mind, but often again despairing of my 
powers. I had a certain disposition to dwell upon the shady 
side of life, to extract the bitter from it — just tasting it ; I 
understood very well how to torment myself. 

If I received little attention from my countrymen in the 
couple of weeks I remained in Munich, yet I found it in a 
high degree among foreigners. My " Improvisatore " and " Only 
a Fiddler " were known to several people here. The renowned 
portrait painter, Stieler, sought me out, opened his house for 
me, and there I met Cornelius, Lachner, and Schelling, with 
whom I was acquainted before. Soon more private houses 
stood open for me. My name reached the ears of the theatre 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



159 



intendant, and I got a free place in the theatre, just by the 
side of Thalberg. 

In "A Poet's Bazaar " I have told of my call on Kaulbach, 
an artist who was then little esteemed by other artists, but 
whom the world has now justly learned to value as a great one. 
I saw then in a cartoon his magnificent picture, " The Devasta- 
tion of Jerusalem/' and sketches of his " Battle of the Huns ; " 
he showed me also the charming drawings of his " Reinecke 
Fuchs," and of Goethe's " Faust." 

I was as happy as a child at going with my friend H. P. 
Hoist to Italy, for I could show him that beautiful country and 
all its grandeur, but our countrymen in Munich would not let 
him go ; his portrait must be taken ; the time was always de- 
ferred for some reason or other, and at last, not able to tell me 
when he could depart, I set off alone, and had to give up the 
pleasure of travelling with the poet in that country which I 
loved and knew as the beautiful land of art. In the mean 
time we agreed to lodge together in Rome, when he arrived 
there, and to travel together to Naples. 

I left Munich the second of December, passed over the 
Tyrol by Innsbruck, crossed the Brenner, and entered Italy, 
the land of my longings and dearest thoughts. So I had then 
really come back again, and it was not as they once said to me, 
"it would be the only time that I should have the chance." 

I was in a tremor of happiness ; in a moment the sorrows 
which crushed my mind were dispersed, and I prayed earnestly 
and fervently to God that he would grant me health and power 
to live a true poet. I reached Rome the nineteenth of De- 
cember, and the pictures and events of the journey are given 
in " A Poet's Bazaar." The same day I arrived I got a good 
lodging with some respectable people on " Via Puriflcatione," 
a large apartment, a whole story, for Hoist and myself, who 
I expected would soon come. 

But he did not come for a long time. I was obliged, there- 
fore, to wander about alone in that large, empty dwelling. I 
had hired it at a very low rate, and this winter there were but 
very few foreigners in Rome, the weather being very bad and 
a malignant fever raging. 

A little garden belonged to my house, in which was a large 



I 60 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

orange-tree, covered with fruit. Blooming monthly roses 
crept up the wall in rich abundance, and monkish songs sol- 
emnly resounded from the monastery of the Capuchins, — the 
very same in which I had made the Improvisatore spend his 
boyhood. I visited again churches and galleries, and I saw 
again all the treasures of art. I met several old friends, and 
spent a Christmas Eve \ if not so gay a festival as the first one, 
yet a Christmas in Rome. I once more went through Carni- 
val and Moccoli. But not only was I myself ill, all nature 
about me appeared likewise to sicken ; there was neither the 
tranquillity nor the freshness which attended my first sojourn 
in Rome. The earth quaked, the Tiber rose, flooding the streets, 
where they rowed in boats ; fever snatched numbers away. In 
a few days Prince Borghese lost his wife and three sons. The 
weather was sleety and windy ; in short, it was dismal. 

I sat many an evening in my large chamber ; a cold draught 
came from windows and doors ; scanty brushwood burned in 
the grate, and while the heat, from it warmed one side, the 
other felt the cold air • I dressed myself in a cloak and sat with 
warm travelling boots on within doors, and suffered, besides, the 
most violent toothache for weeks, which I have tried to make 
fun of in the tale " My Boots." 

Hoist did not arrive until the month of February, a little be- 
fore the Carnival. I suffered in body and in mind, but he 
showed me much sympathy, and that was a real blessing to 
me. 

Rain and wind prevailed. And now came letters from home. 
My letters told me that " The Moorish Maiden " had several 
times been acted through, and had gone quietly off the stage ; 
but, as was seen beforehand, a small public only had been 
present, and therefore the manager had laid the piece aside. 
Other Copenhagen letters to our countrymen in Rome spoke 
with enthusiasm of a new work by Heiberg, — a satirical poem, 
"A Soul after Death." It was but just out, they wrote ; all 
Copenhagen was full of it, and Andersen was famously han- 
dled in it. 

The book was admirable, and I was made ridiculous in it. 
That was the whole which I heard, — all that I knew. No 
one told me what really was said of me, wherein lay the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. l6l 

amusement and the ludicrous. It is doubly painful to be 
ridiculed when we don't know why we are. The informa- 
tion operated like molten lead dropped into a wound, and 
agonized me cruelly. It was not till after my return to Den- 
mark that I read this book, and found that what was said 
of me in it was really nothing in itself which was worth laying 
to heart It was a jest over my celebrity, " From Skaane to 
Hundsriick," which did not please Heiberg \ he therefore sent 
my " Mulatto " and " The Moorish Maiden " to the infernal re- 
gions, where — and that was the most witty conceit — the 
condemned were doomed to witness the performance of both 
pieces in one evening ; and then they could go away and lay 
themselves down quietly. I found the poetry, for the rest, so 
excellent that I was half induced to write to Heiberg, and to 
return him my thanks for it ; but I slept upon this fancy, and 
when I awoke and was more composed, I feared lest such 
thanks should be misunderstood, and so gave it up. 

In Rome, as I have said, I did not see the book ; I only 
heard the arrows whiz and felt their wound, but I did not 
know what the poison was which lay concealed in them. It 
seemed to me that Rome was no joy-bringing city ; when I 
was there before I had also passed dark and bitter days. I 
was ill, for the first time in my life, truly and bodily ill, and 
I made haste to get away. 

It was near Carnival tide that Hoist arrived, and with him 
came our friend, Conrad Rothe, now minister of Our Lady's 
Church in Copenhagen. We three made the journey together 
to Naples in the month of February. 

There is an old saying, a tradition among the foreigners in 
Rome, that the evening before departure from Rome one ought 
to go to the Fontane del Trevi and drink of its water, and 
then one would be sure of coming to Rome again. The 
first time I went away from here I was prevented from going 
to the fountain ; I kept thinking of it the whole night : in the 
morning the man came who carried my luggage, I followed 
him and accidentally passing by the Fontane del Trevi, I 
dipped my finger into the water, tasted it, and had faith — 
" I shall come here again ! " and I did. This time at our 
departure I disregarded the superstition ; we started, when 



1 62 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

suddenly the diligence turned out from II Corso, as we were 
to call for an ecclesiastic in a monastery, and we passed Fon- 
tane del Trevi, and it proved that for the third time I came 
to Rome. The ecclesiastic was a chapel-master, a lively man, 
who at Albano threw off the clerical dress and became a gay 
and genteel gentleman. H. P. Hoist has introduced his char- 
acter in his Italian sketches. 

It was very cold in Naples ; Vesuvius and the hills about 
were covered with snow. There was fever in my blood, and 
I suffered in soul and body ; a toothache for several weeks 
had made me very nervous ; I tried to keep up as well as I 
could, and drove with my countrymen to Herculaneum, but 
while they rambled about in the excavated city, I kept still, 
oppressed with fever - it chanced that they made a mistake 
in the railway-trains, and instead of going to Pompeii we re- 
turned to Naples. I found myself so prostrated by the fever, 
that only by being bled freely was my life saved. The next 
week I grew sensibly better ; and I proceeded by a French 
war-steamer, the Leonidas, to Greece. On the shore the peo- 
ple sang " Eviva la Gioia ! " Yes, long live joy ! if we only 
could reach it. 

It was now as if a new life had risen for me, and in truth 
this was the case ; and if this does not appear legibly in my 
later writings, yet it manifested itself in my views of life, and 
in my whole inner development. As I saw my European 
home lie far behind me, it seemed to me as if a stream of 
forgetfulness flowed over bitter and rankling remembrances : 
I felt health in my blood, health in my thoughts, and freshly 
and courageously I again raised my head. 

Naples lay in the sunlight, the clouds hung about Vesu- 
vius dow r n to the hermit's hut, the sea was almost calm. The 
night following I was roused to see Stromboli vomiting fire 
and mirrored in the water. 

In the morning we passed Charybdis, and saw the surf at 
Scylla. Sicily, with its low rocks and the smoking ^Etna 
sprinkled with snow, was before us. 

I have in my " Bazaar " spoken of the voyage along the sea- 
coast, my stay at Malta, and the brilliant nights and days I 
spent on the calm Mediterranean Sea, whose long waves spar- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 63 

kled in the night. The splendor of the stars astonished me and 
filled me with admiration ; the light of Venus was like that of 
the moon in our North, and made the objects cast a shade ; 
on the surface the big dolphins tumbled ; on the ship all 
was gayety. We frolicked, sung, danced, played at cards, 
and chatted together, — Americans, Italians, and Asiatics ; 
bishops and monks, officers and travellers, 

A few days of living together on the sea make close fellow- 
ship. I was as at home, and it was therefore a real grief to 
me to leave the ship at Syra. The French steamboat line from 
Marseilles to Constantinople crosses at the island of Syra that 
of the line between Alexandria and Piraeus. I must therefore 
here go on board a ship from Egypt, and was the only one, ex- 
cept a Persian from Herat, who left the Leonidas at Syra. 

The city looked like a city of tents, — like a camp, — for 
large sails to keep off the sun were stretched from one house 
to another. The shore had a pretty white and red aspect, for a 
crowd of Greeks with red jackets and white " fostanelles " were 
gathered there. The Greek steamer which usually makes the 
passage between Syra and Piraeus was repairing, and therefore 
I went onboard that from Alexandria which had just arrived, 
and would not stay in quarantine more than a couple of days 
on its arrival at Piraeus. In my " Bazaar " I have given 
a series of pictures of the voyage, to which I must refer, and 
may therefore here make a quicker flight through the coun- 
tries. 

In the harbor of Piraeus, where we had dropped anchor and 
passed quarantine, a boat came up to the ship filled with 
Danes and Germans. The " Allgemeine Zeitung " had told 
them that I was to arrive ; they rowed up to the ship to bring 
me their welcome, and when the quarantine was finished they 
called for me at Piraeus, and with a Greek servant in national 
dress we drove through the olive woods up to Athens, whose 
Lycabettos and Acropolis I had already had in view for a long 
time. The Dutch Consul, Travers, was also Danish Consul, 
and spoke Danish. The chaplain to the King, Luth, was from 
Holstein : he had married a young Danish lady from Fredens- 
borg, and was also among my new friends. 

Luth told me that he had learnt Danish by reading my 



164 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" Improvisatore " in the original. I met here our countryman 
Koeppen, the architects, the brothers Hansen, and the Hol- 
steiner Professor Ross. The Danish language was heard in 
the royal city of Greece, and champagne popped for Denmark 
and for me. 

I remained a month at Athens. My friends would have 
arranged a feast for me on my birthday, the second of April, by 
visiting Mount Parnassus ; but winter had set in, a heavy snow 
had fallen, and I celebrated my birthday on the Acropolis. 
Among the dearest and most interesting acquaintances I 
made at Athens was that of Prokesch-Ostens, the resident 
Austrian minister, already at that time known by his " Memo- 
ries of Egypt and Asia Minor," and his " Travels in the Holy 
Land." Consul Travers presented me to the King and Queen. 
I made several very interesting trips from here ; I spent the 
Greek Easter here, and the Feast of Liberty, of which I have 
tried to give a picture. 

Like another Switzerland, with a loftier and clearer heaven 
than the Italian, Greece lay before me : nature made a deep 
and solemn impression upon me. I felt the sentiment of stand- 
ing on the great battle-field of the world, where nation had 
striven with nation, and had perished. No single poem can 
embrace such greatness ; every scorched-up bed of a stream, 
every height, every stone, has mighty memoirs to relate. How 
little appear the inequalities of daily life in such a place. A 
kingdom of ideas streamed through me, and with such a full- 
ness that none of them fixed^ themselves on paper. I had a 
desire to express the idea, that the godlike was here on earth 
to maintain its contest ; that it is thrust backward, and yet ad- 
vances again victoriously through all ages ; and I found in the 
legend of the " Wandering Jew " an occasion for it. For twelve 
months this fiction had been emerging from the sea of my 
thoughts ; often did it wholly fill me ; sometimes I fancied 
with the alchemists that I had dug up the treasure ; then 
again it sank suddenly, and I despaired of ever being able to 
bring it to the light. I felt what a mass of knowledge of va- 
rious kinds I must first acquire. Often at home, when I was 
compelled to hear reproofs on what they call a want of study, 
I had sat deep into the night, and had studied history in 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 65 

Hegel's "Philosophy of History." I said nothing of this, or 
other studies would immediately have been spoken of, in the 
manner of an instructive lady, who said, that people justly com- 
plained that I did not possess learning enough. " You have 
really no mythology," said she ; " in all your poems there ap- 
pears no single god. You must pursue mythology \ you must 
read Racine and Corneille." That she called learning \ and 
in like manner every one had something peculiar to recom- 
mend. For my poem of " Ahasuerus " I had read much and 
noted much, but yet not enough ; in Greece, I thought, the 
whole will collect itself into clearness. The poem is not yet 
ready, but I hope that it will become so to my honor • for it 
happens with children of the spirit as with the earthly ones, 
they grow as they sleep. 

The twenty-first of April I again sailed from Piraeus to 
Syra, where I went on board the French steamship Rhamsts, 
from Marseilles to Constantinople. We had very rough weather 
in the Archipelago \ I thought of shipwreck and death, and 
having the conviction that all was over, I was rilled with a 
strange feeling of rest, and lay down in my berth, while others 
around me were moaning and praying. All was crashing and 
cracking, but I fell asleep, and when I awoke we were safe and 
sound at Smyrna. Another quarter of the globe lay before 
me. In truth I felt a devotion at treading it like that which I 
felt as a child when I entered the old church of Saint Knud 
at Odense. I thought on Christ, who bled on this earth ; I 
thought on Homer, whose song eternally resounds hence over 
the earth. The shores of Asia preached to me their sermons, 
and were, perhaps, more impressive than any sermon in any 
church can be. 

Smyrna looked very grand with its pointed, red roofs, as in 
the North • there were but few minarets ; the streets were 
narrow, like those of Venice. An ostrich and a camel came 
along, and for both the people were compelled to step aside 
into the open houses. There was a swarming crowd of people 
in the streets : Turkish women, who only showed their eyes 
and tip of the nose ; Jews and Armenians, with white and 
black hats, some of which had the form of a bean-pot upside 
down. The consuls had run out from their houses the re- 



1 66 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

spective flags of their countries ; in the bay lay a smoking 
Turkish steamer, with the crescent on its green flag. 

In* the evening we left Smyrna : the new moon threw its light 
upon the mound of Achilles's tomb on the plains of Troy. At 
six o'clock in the morning we entered the Dardanelles : upon 
the European side lay a red-roofed town with windmills and a 
fine fortress ; upon the Asiatic side a smaller fortress. The 
distance between these two parts of the world seemed to me 
to be that of the Sound between Helsingor and Helsingborg. 
The captain judged it to be two and three quarters lieus. 
Gallipoli, where we entered the Sea of Marmora, has an 
entirely Northern, gloomy look : there were old houses with 
balconies and wooden terraces ; the rocks around were low, 
but had a naked, wild aspect ; there was a heavy sea, and to- 
ward the evening rain fell. The next morning the magnificent 
city of Constantinople lay before us, — a Venice risen out of 
the sea. One mosque more splendid than another rose to our 
view ; the Seraglio lay light and swimming before us. The 
sun burst forth and shone upon the Asiatic shores, the first 
cypress woods I had seen, and upon the minarets of Scutari. 
It was an enchanting view ! There was a crying and halloaing 
of people in the small, rocking boats with which it swarmed ; 
majestic looking Turks carried our baggage. 

In Constantinople I passed eleven interesting days ; and 
according to my good fortune in travel, the birthday of 
Mohammed itself fell exactly during my stay there. I saw the 
grand illumination, which completely transported me into the 
"Thousand and One Nights." 

Our Danish ambassador lived several miles from Constanti- 
nople, and I had therefore no opportunity of seeing him ; but 
I found a cordial reception with the Austrian internuncius, 
Baron Sturmer. With him I had a German home and friends. 
I contemplated making my return by the Black Sea and up 
the Danube ; but the country was disturbed ; it was said there 
had been several thousand Christians murdered. My compan- 
ions of the voyage, in the hotel where I resided, gave up this 
route of the Danube, for which I had the greatest desire, and 
collectively counseled me against it. But in this case I must 
return again by Greece and Italy — it was a severe conflict. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 67 

I do not belong to the courageous \ I feel fear, especially in 
little dangers \ but in great ones, and when an advantage is to 
be won, then I have a will, and it has grown firmer with years. 
I may tremble, I may fear ; but I still do that which I con- 
sider the most proper to be done. I am not ashamed to con- 
fess my weakness ; I hold that when out of our own true con- 
viction we run counter to our inborn fear, we have done our 
duty. I had a strong desire to become acquainted with the 
interior of the country, and to traverse the Danube in its 
greatest expansion. I battled with myself; my imagination 
pointed to me the most horrible circumstances ; it was an 
anxious night. In the morning I took counsel with Baron 
Sturmer, and as he was of opinion that I might undertake 
the voyage, I determined upon it. From the moment that I 
had taken my determination I had the most immovable reliance 
on Providence, and flung myself calmly on my fate. The 
fourth of May I went on board the ship, which lay by the 
garden of the Seraglio. 

Early in the morning, when we weighed anchor, we heard 
the sad news that the large Austrian steamship, which we had 
expected to meet us, had struck upon a rock the night before in 
the fog in the Black Sea, and was totally wrecked. We passed 
through the strange-looking Bosphorus, suffered heavy seas and 
foggy weather, stopped one day at the city of Kostendsche, 
near the decayed rampart of Trajan, and rode in big carriages 
of basket-work, drawn by white oxen, along the desolate coun- 
try, where wild dogs were strolling about. Only the tumbled 
down tombstones of two cemeteries showed us that here had 
been towns, which were burnt by the Russians in the War of 
1809. It was the city of Dobrudscha. We spent two days in 
passing over the whole remarkable seat of war of the Russians 
and Turks. I have thus in my head the best map I could 
obtain of the Danube territory, — the clearest idea of the 
miserable small towns and ruined fortresses ; I saw whole 
ruins of fortifications, built of earth and basket-work. We did 
not hear anything of the disturbances in the country until we 
reached Rustschuk, with its many minarets. The shore was 
crowded with people : two Frankish-dressed young men were 
thrown into the Danube ; they swam toward land : one of them 



i68 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



reached it, but the other, who was stoned, swam out toward us 
and cried out : " Help ! they are killing me ! " We stopped in 
the middle of the river, got him up, and made signals by a 
cannon-shot. The pasha of the city came on board and took 
the poor Frank under his protection. 

From the ship we saw next day the Balkan Mountains, 
covered with snow ; between them and us the revolt was raging. 
In the night we heard that an armed Tartar, who carried letters 
and dispatches from Widdin to Constantinople, was attacked 
and killed ; another, I believe, had the same fate. The third 
got his escort scattered, escaped from it himself, and came 
down to the Danube, where, hidden among the reeds, he had 
awaited the arrival of our steamship. The man, in his sheep- 
skin clothes, just coming out of the mire, and armed to the 
teeth, as we call it, looked horribly when we at lamp-light be- 
held him coming on board ; he travelled with us a whole 
day up the Danube. 

At Widdin, the strong fortress of the Turks, we went 
ashore, but not before we were well fumigated so that we might 
not bring any contagions from Constantinople. Hussein-Pasha, 
who resided here, sent us all the last copies of " Allgemeine 
Zeitung," so that we got our best information about the condi- 
tion of the country from the German side. Servia looked like 
a primitive woodland ; we travelled in small boats for many 
miles the rushing and foaming Danube, — through the " iron 
gate," as they call that part of the river. I have in my " Ba- 
zaar " given a picture of it. 

At Old Orsova we had to pass quarantine. The building 
was only arranged to receive Wallachian peasants, and not 
travellers with more wants ; almost all the rooms were paved ; 
the provisions horrid, the wine still worse. I shared a room 
with the Englishman, Mr. Ainsworth, a brother of the writer, 
who was on his way home from his travels in Kurdistan. 
When " A Poet's Bazaar " was published afterward in Lon- 
'don, Mr. Ainsworth wrote in the " Literary Gazette " of ioth 
October, 1846, at the editor's suggestion, an account of our 
stay in quarantine, where his appreciation of me is very kindly 
expressed, and places me, perhaps, in too good a light. He re- 
lates that I was " very skillful in cutting out paper. The draw- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 69 

ings of the Mewlewis, or leaping dervishes, in my Asiatic trav- 
els, are from cuttings of his." 

After having passed quarantine we crossed the military fron- 
tier, under lofty chestnut-trees ; past relics of the time of the 
Romans, by ruins of bridges, towers, and the grand " Trajan 
tablet " in the rocky wall. Picturesque groups of Wallachian 
peasants were varied by Austrian soldiers in great numbers, 
and gypsy bands encamped in caves of the rocks. One pic- 
ture followed another, but when we came again on board the 
steamship, it was so thronged with people that we could 
scarcely move. All were going to the great fair at Pesth ; 
the passage was a long, sleepless, and difficult one, but we 
had a good view of the Hungarian people. The country be- 
came more and more flat, and had no longer its former rich 
variety, which it again displayed afterward nearer Presburg. 
The town of Theben was in flames when we passed. I ar- 
rived at the imperial city of Vienna on the twenty-first day of 
the journey, and landed at the Prater. I visited old friends, 
and soon, by way of Prague and Dresden, the journey turned 
homeward. 

It seemed to me very characteristic that during the whole 
journey from Italy by Greece and Turkey to Hamburg my 
trunk was only twice searched, namely, at the Austrian and 
the German frontier, while it was examined not less than five 
times before I entered my room at Copenhagen. They 
searched it first on my arrival in Holstein, then at Aroesound, 
again at my landing in Funen, next at Slagelse, when I left 
the diligence, and at last when I came with the stage-coach 
to Copenhagen ; such was the custom at that time. 

On my arrival at Hamburg there was a great musical festival. 
I met many countrymen at the table d'hote, and while speak- 
ing to my friends of the beautiful Greece, of the rich Orient, 
an old Copenhagen lady addressed me with the words : — 

" Mr. Andersen, have you on your many and long travels 
ever seen anything abroad so beautiful as our little Den- 
mark ?" 

" Indeed I have ! " answered I : " I have seen many things 
far more beautiful ! " 

" Fie ! " exclaimed she, " you are no patriot ! " 



I7O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I passed through Odense just at the time of St. Knud's 
Fair. " I am very glad," said a respectable lady of Funen, 
"that you have arranged your great journey so as to come 
to the fair. I see that you keep to Odense : that I have al- 
ways said ! " So, there I passed for a patriot ! 

Arriving at Slagelse, the town of my school days, I was 
strangely affected and surprised at meeting with some old 
friends. When I was scholar there I used to see Pastor Bas- 
tholm with his wife every evening taking the same walk, 
— from the back gate of their garden along the pathway 
over the corn-field, and returning by the great road. Now, 
several years after, returning from Greece and Turkey, and 
driving on the highway of Slagelse, I saw the old couple 
taking their usual little walk through the corn-field. It af- 
fected me strangely. They went there still year after year the 
same way, and I had flown so far, far about. The great con- 
trast between, us was strangely brought into my thoughts. 

In the middle of August, 1841, I was again in Copenhagen, 
and this time without anxiety or suffering, as on my first re- 
turn from Italy. I was very glad to see again all my dear 
friends, and with a sincere heart I exclaimed : " The first mo- 
ment of return is the bouquet of the whole journey ! " There 
I wrote my recollections of travel, under the title of "A Poef s 
Bazaar," in several chapters, according to the countries. In 
various places abroad I had met with individuals, as at home, 
to whom I felt myself attached. The poet is like a bird ; he 
gives what he has, and he gives a song. I was desirous of 
giving every one of those dear ones such a song. It was a 
fugitive idea, born, may I venture to say, in a grateful mood. 
Count Rantzau-Breitenburg, who had resided in Italy, who 
loved the land, and was become a friend and benefactor to me 
through my " Improvisatore," must love that part of the book 
which treated of his country. To Liszt and Thalberg, who 
had both shown me the greatest friendship, I dedicated the 
portion which contained the voyage up the Danube, because 
one was a Hungarian and the other an Austrian. With these 
indications, the reader will easily be able to trace out the 
thought which influenced me in the choice of each dedication. 
But these appropriations were, in my native country, regarded 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



171 



as a fresh proof of my vanity : " I wished to figure with great 
names, — to name distinguished people as my friends. " 

The book has been translated into several languages, and 
the dedications with it. I know not how they have been re- 
garded abroad; if I had been judged there as in Denmark, I 
hope that this explanation will change the opinion concerning 
them. In Denmark my " Bazaar " procured me the most hand- 
some remuneration that I had as yet received, — a proof that 
I was at length read there. No regular criticism appeared 
upon it, if one excepts notices in some daily papers, and after- 
ward in the poetical attempt of a young writer who, a year 
before, had testified in writing his love for me, and his wish to 
do me honor ; but who now, in his first public appearance, 
launched his satirical poem against his friend. I w 7 as personally 
attached to this young man, and am so still. He assuredly 
thought more of the popularity he would gain by sailing in 
the wake of Heiberg, than on the pain he would inflict on me. 

The newspaper criticism in Copenhagen was infinitely stu- 
pid. It was set down as exaggerated, that I could have seen 
the whole round blue globe of the moon in Smyrna at the 
time of the new moon. That was called fancy and extrava- 
gance which there every one sees who can open his eyes. 
The new moon has a dark-blue and perfectly round disk. 

The Danish critics have generally no open eye for nature : 
even that very cultivated " Monthly Periodical of Literature " 
in Denmark censured me once, because in a poem I had de- 
scribed a rainbow by moonlight. That too was my fancy, 
which, said they, carried me too far. When I said in the 
" Bazaar," " If I were a painter, I would paint this bridge ; 
but, as I am no painter, but a poet, I must therefore speak," 
etc : the critic says, " He is so vain, that he tells us himself 
that he is a poet." There is something so pitiful in such 
criticism, that one cannot be wounded by it ; but even when we 
are the most peaceable of men, we feel a desire to flagellate 
such wet dogs, who come into our rooms and lay themselves 
down in the best places there. There might be a whole 
Fool's Chronicle written of all the absurd and shameless 
things which, from my first appearance before the public till 
this moment, I have been compelled to hear. 



172 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



In the mean time the " Bazaar'" was much read, and made 
what is called a hit. I received, connected with this book, 
much encouragement and many recognitions from individuals 
of the highest distinction in the realms of intellect in my na- 
tive land. 

Several editions of that book have since been published, 
and it has been translated into German, and into Swedish 
and English, and it has been received with great favor. The 
English edition in three volumes, with my portrait, was pub- 
lished by Richard Bentley in London, and was very gener- 
ously noticed in English papers and reviews. The English 
publisher sent to Christian VIII. a beautifully bound copy of , 
that book and of my earlier published writings. They did the 
same in Germany, and the king appreciated highly the great 
consideration they showed me abroad. I know that he ex- 
pressed it to H. C. Orsted and many others, while he uttered 
his astonishment at the opposition I still met at home, at the 
constant effort to bring into prominence my weak side and 
efface the impression of the good, and at the pleasure people 
took in mocking at and depreciating my activity. It made me 
happy to hear this, and the more as it came from H. C. Or- 
sted, the only man of all my intimate and sympathizing friends 
who clearly and distinctly expressed his appreciation of my 
poetical ability and strongly encouraged me, while he pre- 
dicted that there ought to come and would come a better 
time for me at home, when I should be acknowledged, and 
should feel myself as well satisfied with the judgment I re- 
ceived as I now ought to be at that which came from abroad. 

We often talked together of what was the real cause that I 
must struggle so much and so long, and we agreed touching 
many probable causes. The fault might perhaps lie in my 
poverty at first, and my desponding tone to people. They 
could not forget, as was also remarked abroad, that they 
had seen me as a poor boy running about and growing up. 
Some fault might perhaps also lie, as remarked by my biog- 
rapher in the " Danish Pantheon," in that I did not know of, 
nor use the means most authors make use of in order to 
profit by society ; add to this, what also H. C. Orsted deplored, 
that the highly esteemed Monthly showed severity and want 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, I 73 

of good-will toward me ; and finally the contempt of the " Let- 
ters from the Dead," the critiques in the newspapers, which 
followed the fashion ; in short, the printed public judgment, 
which used its power among us and made us bow to its au- 
thority. Besides^ we have all a great sense of the ludicrous, 
and I had the ill fortune to be set' in a ridiculous light by sev- 
eral awkward but very well meant articles. 

It was a time when the newspapers in my native city, 
Odense, always called me " Our city's child," and gave infor- 
mation about me which could not be of any interest to the 
public. Extracts were given from my private letters when I 
was abroad, which became ridiculous when given in the news- 
paper : thus, for instance, when I once wrote home from Rome 
that I had seen Queen Christina in the chapel of Pope Sixtus, 
and added that she put me in mind of the wife of the com- 
poser Hartmann, it was reported in the Funen newspaper that 
" Queen Christina resembled a certain lady in Copenhagen." 
Of course they laughed at that. How often have I experi- 
enced the awkward friendship that vexes us. From that time 
until now I have always feared to speak of such things to a 
thoughtless news-writer, and yet I have not escaped. I was 
afterward again ridiculed when it was no fault of mine. I 
was on a journey, and stopped for half an hour at the Odense 
post-office, where a news-writer asked me, — 

" Are you going abroad now ? " 

"No," I answered. 

" Do you not expect to ? " 

" It depends on whether I can get money. I am writing a 
piece for the theatre ; if it proves successful I presume I shall 
go away." 

" Where will you then go ? " 

" I do not yet know ; either to Spain or to Greece, I think." 

The same evening I read in the newspaper a paragraph to 
the effect that — " H. C. Andersen is writing a piece for the 
theatre : should it prove to be successful he is going abroad, 
either to Spain or to Greece." 

Of course I was ridiculed, and a Copenhagen newspaper 
was right in saying that my journey was rather a distant pros- 
pect. The piece was to be written, played, and have its sue- 



174 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

cess, and then one could not be sure whether my journey 
would be to Spain or Greece. People laughed, and one 
who is laughed at has lost his cause. I became depressed 
and took no pains to conceal it. When boys throw stones at 
a poor dog which is swimming against the stream, it is not 
because they are wicked but because they think it fun, and 
people had similar sport with me. I had no defenders, I did 
not belong to any party, I had no newspaper-writing friends, 
and therefore I was compelled to do as I did. In the mean 
time it was said and written and frequently repeated, that I 
lived only in the company of my admirers ! How little they 
knew about it. What I here must present is no complaint ; I 
will not cast a particle of shade over the many whom I really 
love ; I am sure that if I had fallen into great need and 
trouble, they would have put forth all their endeavor not to 
let me go under, but a poetic nature needs sympathy of an- 
other kind, and of that I have been very much in want. My 
dearest friends have as severely and loudly as any critic ex- 
pressed their surprise at the appreciation my works have re- 
ceived abroad. Fredrika Bremer discerned it and was very 
much astonished. We were in company together in Copen- 
hagen at a house where it was said that I was a spoiled child. 
She thought she was telling something agreeable when she 
said : " It is almost incredible how Andersen is loved in Swe- 
den from south to north ; in almost every house we see his 
books ! " 

" Don't make him believe such things ! " was the answer, 
and said in real earnest. Much has been said about the fact 
that to be noble or of high birth has no longer any signifi- 
cance : that is only nonsense. The able but poor student is 
not received in what we call good houses with the same kind- 
ness as the well-dressed child of nobility, or the son of a pub- 
lic functionary. I could illustrate it by many examples, but I 
will only give one, which may stand for all, — one out of my 
own life. The guilty is or was — I will not say which — a 
person highly honored, whose name I will omit. 

When Christian VIII., for the first time as king, visited 
the theatre, " The Mulatto " was played. , I was seated in the 
parquette by the side of Thorwaldsen, who, when the curtain 
fell, whispered to me : " The King is bowing to you ! " 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



i/5 



" It must be for you ! " I answered ; " it cannot concern 
me ! " I looked up to the royal box : the King again bowed, 
and plainly it was intended for me ; but I felt that a possible 
misunderstanding on my part would lead to my being laughed 
at by the public, and therefore I sat quietly, and the next day 
I went to the king to give him my thanks for that unusual 
favor, and he teased me for not returning his greeting on the 
spot. A few days after there was a grand bal parte at the 
castle of Christiansborg for all classes of the community. I 
had received a card of invitation. 

" What shall you do there ? " asked one of our elder men 
of learning, when I spoke of the festival to him. " What do 
you have to do with such places ! " repeated he. 

I answered in joke, — " Well, it is because I am always so 
well received in that circle ! " 

" But it is not your place there ! " said he angrily. 

There was nothing for me but to answer freely and laugh- 
ingly, as if I did not feel the sting, — 

" The king himself has in the theatre saluted me from his 
box, so I think I may also go to his bal paree /" 

" Saluted you from his box, you say ! " exclaimed he : " but 
that does not prove that you have any right to intrude ! " 

"But people of the same class that I belong to will be at 
the ball ! " added I more earnestly ; " students will be there ! " 

"Yes, but what students?'' he asked. I named a young 
student of the gentleman's own family. 

" Yes, but that is different ! " replied he then : " he is the 
son of a Counselor of State ! What was your father ? " 

My blood boiled at that. " My father was a tradesman ! " 
said I. " I have, by the help of God and by my own work, 
acquired the position I now have, and which you think honor- 
able enough I make no doubt ! " He never apologized to me 
for his rudeness. 

It is very difficult to tell in a roundabout way of wrong 
that one has suffered, when the wrong has not been malicious, 
and I have throughout my book felt this difficulty, and there- 
fore I have refused to show the full cup of bitterness : I have 
only let fall some drops from it. The journey had strength- 
ened me and I began to show indications of a firmer purpose, 



176 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



a more certain judgment. Many heavy seas still followed, 
but from that time I steadily advanced through smooth water 
toward the recognition I could wish for and claim of my own 
country, — such also as Orsted had predicted in his comfort- 
ing words. 



^^^ 




CHAPTER IX. 



POLITICAL life in Denmark had, at that time, arrived at 
a higher development, producing both good and evil 
fruits. The eloquence which had formerly accustomed itself 
to the Demosthenic mode, — that of putting little pebbles in 
the mouth, the little pebbles of every-day life, — now exercised 
itself more freely on subjects of greater interest. I felt no call 
thereto, and no necessity to mix myself up in such matters ; 
for I then believed that the politics of our times were a great 
misfortune to many a poet. Madame Politics is like Venus : 
they whom she decoys into her castle perish. It fares with 
the writings of these poets as with the newspapers : they are 
seized upon, read, praised, and forgotten. In our days every 
one wishes to rule ; the subjective makes its power of value ; 
people forget that that which is thought of cannot always be 
carried out, and that many things look very different when 
contemplated from the top of the tree, to what they did when 
seen from its roots. I will bow myself before him who is in- 
fluenced by a noble conviction, and who only desires that 
which is conducive to good, be he prince or man of the people. 
Politics are no affair of mine. God has imparted to me 
another mission : that I felt, and that I feel still. 

I met in the so-called first families of the country a number 
of friendly, kind-hearted men, who valued the good that was 
in me, received me into their circles, and permitted me to 
participate in the happiness of their opulent summer resi- 
dences ; so that, still feeling independent, I could thoroughly 
give myself up to the pleasures of nature, the solitude of 
woods, and country life. There for the first time I lived 
wholly among the scenery of Denmark, and there I wrote the 
greater number of my fairy tales. On the banks of quiet 
lakes, amid the woods, on the green grassy pastures, where 
the game sprang past me, and the stork paced along on his 



I 78 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

red legs, I heard nothing of politics, nothing of polemics ; I 
heard no one practicing himself in Hegel's phraseology. Na- 
ture, which was around me, and within me, preached to me of 
my calling. I spent many happy days at the old house of 
Gisselfeld, formerly a monastery, which stands in the deepest 
solitude of the woods, surrounded by lakes and hills. The 
possessor of this fine place, the old Countess Danneskjold, 
mother of the Duchess of Augustenburg, was an agreeable 
and excellent lady. I was there not as a poor child of the 
people, but as a cordially received guest. The beeches now 
overshadow her grave in the midst of that pleasant scenery 
to which her heart was allied. 

Close by Gisselfeld, but in a still finer situation, and of 
much greater extent, lies the estate of Bregentved, which be- 
belongs to Count Moltke, Danish Minister of Finance. The 
hospitality which I met with in this place, one of the richest 
and most beautiful of our country, and the happy, social life 
which surrounded me here, have diffused a sunshine over my 
life. 

It may appear, perhaps, as if I desired to bring the names 
of great people prominently forward, and make a parade of 
them ; or as if I wished in this way to offer a kind of thanks 
to my benefactors. They need it not, and I should be 
obliged to mention many other names still if this were my in- 
tention. I speak, however, only of these two places, and of 
Nyso, which belongs to Baron Stampe, and which has become 
celebrated through Thorwaldsen. Here I lived much with 
the great sculptor, and here I became acquainted with one of 
my dearest young friends, the future possessor of the place. 

Knowledge of life in these various circles has had great in- 
fluence on me : among princes, among the nobility, and among 
the poorest of the people, I have met with specimens of noble 
humanity. We all of us resemble each other in that which 
is good and best. 

Winter life in Denmark has likewise its attractions and its 
rich variety. I spent also some time in the country during 
this season, and made myself acquainted with its peculiar 
characteristics. The greatest part of my time, however, I 
passed in Copenhagen. I felt myself at home with the mar- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



179 



ried sons and daughters of Collin, where a number of amiable 
children were growing up. Every year strengthened the bond 
of friendship between myself and the nobly gifted composer 
Hartmann : art and the freshness of nature prospered in his 
house. Collin was my counselor in practical life, and Or- 
sted in my literary affairs. The theatre was, if I may say so, 
my club. I visited it every evening, and in this very year I 
had received a place in the so-called court stalls. An author 
must, as a matter of course, work himself up to it. After the 
first accepted piece he obtains admission to the pit ; after the 
second greater work, in the stalls, where the actors have their 
seats \ and after three larger works, or a succession of lesser 
pieces, the poet is advanced to the best places. Here were to 
be found Thorwaldsen, Oehlenschlager, and several older 
poets ) and here also, in 1840, I obtained a place, after I had 
given in seven pieces. Whilst Thorwaldsen lived, I often, by 
his own wish, sat at his side. Oehlenschlager was also my 
neighbor, and in many an evening hour, when no one dreamed 
of it, my soul was steeped in deep humility, as I sat between 
these great spirits. The different periods of my life passed 
before me : the time when I sat on the hindmost bench in the 
box of the female figurantes, as well as that in which, full of 
childish superstition, I knelt down there upon the stage and 
repeated the Lord's Prayer, just before the very place where I 
now sat among the first and the most distinguished men. At 
the time, perhaps, when a countryman of mine thus thought 
of and passed judgment upon me, — " There he sits, between 
the two great spirits, full of arrogance and pride ; " he may 
now perceive by this acknowledgment how unjustly he has 
judged me. Humility and prayer to God for strength to de- 
serve my happiness, filled my heart. May He always enable 
me to preserve these feelings ! I enjoyed the friendship of 
Thorwaldsen as well as of Oehlenschlager, — those two most 
distinguished stars in the horizon of the North. I may here 
bring forward their reflected glory in and around me. 

There was in the character of Oehlenschlager, when he was 
not seen in the circles of the great, where he was quiet and 
reserved, something so open and child-like, that no one could 
help becoming attached to him. He was of great importance 



l8o THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

to the nation, to the whole North, and that is well known ; 
he was the true-born poet, always appearing young, and when 
the oldest of all, surpassing all in the fertility of his mind. 
He listened in a friendly spirit to my first lyrical productions ; 
followed me with sympathy, and when the critics and people 
judged me harshly and ungenerously, he was the man who 
opposed them with genuine fervor. One day he found me 
deeply depressed at the severe and bitter treatment I was re- 
ceiving ; he pressed me to his bosom, — 

" Do not mind those bawlers ! " said he ; iC I tell you, you are 
a true poet ! " Then he expressed passionately and warmly 
his judgment of poetry and poets, of our criticism at home, 
igiving me his full sympathy. He appreciated earnestly and 
ikindly the poet who told fairy tales ; and I remember one day, 
when a man tried to lower me by pointing out what he called 
orthographical sins which he had discovered in one of my 
books, Oehlenschlager exclaimed with animation : " But they 
shall be there, they are little characteristics which belong to 
him, and yet are not at all the principal marks. The great 
Goethe said about just such a little error, — ' Let the little 
wretch stay ! ' and would not even correct it." 

I will further on give a few traits of his character and of our 
intercourse in the last few years of his life. My biographer 
in the " Danish Pantheon " brought me in contact with Oehlen- 
schlager, when he said : " In our days it is becoming more and 
more rare for any one, by implicitly following those inborn im- 
pulses of his soul, which make themselves irresistibly felt, to 
step forward as an artist or a poet. He is more frequently 
fashioned by fate and circumstances than apparently destined 
by Nature herself for this office. With the greater number of 
our poets an early acquaintance with passion, early inward ex- 
perience, or outward circumstances, stand instead of the orig- 
inal vein of nature, and this cannot in any case be more incon- 
testably proved in our own literature than by instancing 
Oehlenschlager and Andersen. And in this way it may be 
explained why tlae former has been so frequently the object 
for the attacks of the critics, and why the latter was first prop- 
erly appreciated as a poet in foreign countries, where civiliza- 
tion of a longer date has already produced a disinclination for 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. l8l 

the compulsory rule of schools, and has occasioned'a reaction 
toward that which is fresh and natural \ whilst we Danes, on 
the contrary, cherish a pious respect for the yoke of the schools 
and the worn-out wisdom of maxims." 

Thorwaldsen, whom, as I have already said, I had become 
acquainted with in Rome in the years 1833 and 1834, was ex- 
pected in Denmark in the autumn of 1838, and great festive 
preparations were made in consequence. A flag was to wave 
upon one of the towers of Copenhagen as soon as the vessel 
which brought him should come in sight. It was a national 
festival. Boats decorated with flowers and flags filled the 
Rhede \ painters, sculptors, all had their flags with emblems \ 
the students' bore a Minerva, the poets' a Pegasus. It was 
misty weather, and the ship was first seen when it was already 
close by the city, and all poured out to meet him. The poets, 
who, I believe, according to the arrangement of Heiberg, had 
been invited, stood by their boat ; Oehlenschlager and Hei- 
berg alone had not arrived. And now guns were fired from 
the ship, which came to anchor, and it was to be feared that 
Thorwaldsen might land before we had gone out to meet him. 
The wind bore the voice of singing over to us : the festive re- 
ception had already begun. 

I wished to see him, and therefore cried out to the others, 
"Let us put off!" 

" Without Oehlenschlager an^ Heiberg ? " asked some one. 

" But they are not arrived, and it will be all over." 

One of the poets declared that if these two men were not 
with us, I should not sail under that flag, and pointed up to 
Pegasus. 

" We will throw it in the boat," said I, and took it down 
from the staff \ the others now followed me, and came up 
just as Thorwaldsen reached land. We met with Oehlenschla- 
ger and Heiberg in another boat, and they came over to us as 
the enthusiasm began on shore. 

The people drew Thorwaldsen's carriage through the streets 
to his house, where everybody who had the slightest acquaint- 
ance with him, or with the friends of a friend of his, thronged 
around him. In the evening the artists gave him a serenade, 
and the blaze of the torches illumined the garden under the 



1 82 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

large trees ; there was an exultation and joy which really and 
truly was felt. Young and old hastened through the open 
doors, and the joyful old man clasped those whom he knew 
to his breast, gave them his kiss, and pressed their hands. 
There was a glory round Thorwaldsen which kept me timidly 
back : my heart beat for joy of seeing him who had met me 
when abroad with kindness and consolation, who had pressed 
me to his heart, and had said that we must always remain 
friends. But here in this jubilant crowd, where thousands 
noticed every movement of his, where I too by all these 
should be observed and criticised — yes, criticised as a vain 
man who now only wished to show that he too was acquainted 
with Thorwaldsen, and that this great man was kind and 
friendly toward him — here, in this dense crowd, I drew my- 
self back, and avoided being recognized by him. Some days 
afterward, and early in the morning, I went to call upon him, 
and found him as a friend who had wondered at not having 
seen me earlier. 

In honor of Thorwaldsen a musical-poetic academy was 
established, and the poets, who were invited to do so by Hei- 
berg, wrote and read each one a poem in praise of him who 
had returned home. I wrote of Jason who fetched the golden 
fleece — that is to say, Jason-Thorwaldsen, who went forth to 
win golden art. A great dinner and a ball closed the festival, 
in which, for the first time m Denmark, popular life and a 
subject of great interest in the realms of art were made public. 

From this evening I saw Thorwaldsen almost daily in com- 
pany or in his studio : I often passed several weeks together 
with him at Nyso, where he seemed to have firmly taken root, 
and where the greater number of his works executed in Den- 
mark had their origin. He was of a healthful and simple 
disposition of mind, not without humor, and, therefore, he was 
extremely attached to Holberg the poet : he did not at all 
enter into the troubles and the disruptions of the world. 

One morning at Nyso — at the time when he was working 
at his own statue — I entered his work-room and bade him 
good morning ; he appeared as if he did not wish to notice 
me, and I stole softly away again. At breakfast he was very 
parsimonious in the use of words, and when somebody asked 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 83 

him to say something at all events, he replied in his dry 
way : — 

" I have said more during this morning that in many whole 
days, but nobody heard me. There I stood, and fancied that 
Andersen was behind me, for he came and said Good-morn- 
ing ! so I told him a long story about myself and Byron. I 
thought that he might give me one word in reply, and turned 
myself round \ and there had I been standing a whole hour 
and chattering aloud to the bare walls." 

We all of us besought him to let us hear the whole story yet 
once more \ but we had it now very short. 

"O, that was in Rome," said he, "when I was about to 
make Byron's statue ; he placed himself just opposite to me, 
and began immediately to assume quite another countenance 
to what was customary to him. c Will not you sit still ? ' said I ; 
'but you must not make these faces.' — 'It is my expression/ 
said Byron. l Indeed ? ' said I, and then I made him as I 
wished, and everybody said, when it was finished, that I had 
hit the likeness. When Byron, however, saw it, he said, ' It 
does not resemble me at all ; I look more unhappy.' 

" He was, above all things, so desirous of looking extremely 
unhappy," added Thorwaldsen, with a comic expression. 

It afforded the great sculptor pleasure to listen to music 
after dinner with half-shut eyes, and it was his greatest delight 
when in the evening the game of lotto began, which the whole 
neighborhood of Nyso was obliged to learn ; they only played 
for glass pieces, and on this account I am able to relate a pe- 
culiar characteristic of this otherwise great man — that he 
played with the greatest interest on purpose to win. 

He would espouse with warmth and vehemence the part of 
those from whom he believed that he had received an injus- 
tice ; he opposed himself to unfairness and raillery, even 
against the lady of the house, who for the rest had the most 
childlike sentiments toward him, and who had no other thought 
than how to make everything most agreeable to him. 

In his company I wrote several of my tales for children — 
for example, " Ole Luckoie " (" Ole Shut Eye "), to which 
he listened with pleasure and interest. Often in the twilight, 
when the family circle sat in the open garden parlor, Thor- 



184 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

waldsen would come softly behind me, and, clapping me on 
the shoulder, would ask, " Shall we little ones hear any tales 
to-night ? " 

In his own peculiarly natural manner he bestowed the most 
bountiful praise on my fictions, for their truth ; it delighted 
him to hear the same stories over and over again. Often, dur- 
ing his most glorious works, would he stand with laughing 
countenance, and listen to the stories of " The Top and the 
Ball," and the " Ugly Duckling." I possess a certain talent 
of improvising in my native tongue little poems and songs. 
This talent amused Thorwaldsen very much ; and as he had 
modeled, at Nyso, Holberg's portrait in clay, I was commis- 
sioned to make a poem for his work, and he received, there- 
fore, the following impromptu : — 

"No more shall Holberg live," by Death was said : 
" I crush the clay, his soul's bonds heretofore." 

" And from the formless clay, the cold, the dead," 
Cried Thorwaldsen, " shall Holberg live once more." 

One morning, when he had just modeled in clay his great 
bass-relief of the " Procession to Golgotha," I entered his study. 

"Tell me," said he, "does it seem to you that I have 
dressed Pilate properly ? " 

"You must not say anything to him," said the Baroness, 
who was always with him : " it is right ; it is excellent ; go 
away with you ! " 

Thorwaldsen repeated his question. 

" Well then," said I, " as you ask me, I must confess that it 
really does appear to me as if Pilate were dressed rather as 
an Egyptian than as a Roman." 

" It seems to me so too," said Thorwaldsen, seizing the 
clay with his hand, and destroying the figure. 

" Now you are guilty of his having annihilated an immortal 
work ! " exclaimed the Baroness to me with warmth. 

" Then we can make a new immortal work," said he, in a 
cheerful humor, and modeled Pilate as he now remains in 
the bass-reliefs in Our Lady's Church in Copenhagen. 

His last birthday was celebrated there in the country. I 
had written a merry little song, and it was hardly dry on the 
paper when we sang it in the early morning, before his door, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 85 

accompanied by the music of jingling fire-irons, gongs, and 
bottles rubbed against a basket. Thorwaldsen himself, in his 
morning gown and slippers, opened his door, and danced 
round his chamber ; swung round his Raphael's cap, and 
joined in the chorus. There was life and mirth in the strong 
old man. 

On the last day of his life I sat by him at dinner ; he was 
unusually good-humored; repeated several 'witticisms which 
he had just read in the " Corsair,'' a well-known Copenhagen 
newspaper, and spoke of the journey which he should under- 
take to Italy in the summer. After this we parted ; he went 
to the theatre, and I home. 

On the following morning the waiter at the hotel where I 
lived said, " that it was a very remarkable thing about Thor- 
waldsen — that he had died yesterday." 

"Thorwaldsen!" exclaimed I; "he is not dead; I dined 
with him yesterday." 

" People say that he died last evening at the theatre," re- 
turned the waiter. 

I fancied that he might be taken ill ; but still I felt a 
strange anxiety, and hastened immediately over to his house. 
There lay his corpse stretched out on the bed ; the chamber 
was filled with strangers ; the floor wet with melted snow ; 
the air stifling ; no one said a word : the Baroness Stampe sat 
on the bed and wept bitterly. I stood trembling and deeply 
agitated. 

Thorwaldsen's funeral was a day of mourning for the 
nation. Men and women dressed in crape stood at windows 
and in the streets ; they uncovered their heads involun- 
tarily when the coffin passed by. There was a calmness 
even among the most wild boys ; the poorest children held 
each other's hands and formed ranks, through which the great 
funeral procession moved from Charlottenborg to Our Lady's 
Church, where King Christian VII I. came to meet the pro- 
cession. 

From the organ was played a funeral march, composed by 
Hartmann ; the tones were so powerful that we felt as if the 
great invisible spirits joined the procession. A good-night 
hymn which I had written, and to which also Hartmann had 
set music, was sung by Danish students over his coffin. 



CHAPTER X. 



IN the summer of 1842, I wrote a little piece for the sum- 
mer theatre, called " The Bird in the Pear-tree," in which 
several scenes were acted up in the pear-tree. I had called it 
a dramatic trifle, in order that no one might expect either a 
great work or one of a very elaborate character. It was a lit- 
tle sketch, which, after being performed a few times, was re~ 
ceived with so much applause, that the directors of the theatre 
accepted it ; nay, even Mrs. Heiberg, the favorite of the pub- 
lic, desired to take a part in it. People had been amused ; 
had thought the selection of the music excellent. I knew 
that the piece had stood its rehearsal — and then suddenly 
it was hissed. Some young men, who gave the word to hiss, 
had said to some others, who inquired of them their reasons 
for doing so, that the trifle had too much luck, and then An- 
dersen would be getting too mettlesome. 

I was not, on this evening, at the theatre myself, and had 
not the least idea of what was going on. On the following 
evening I went to the house of one of my friends. I had head- 
ache, and was looking very grave. The lady of the house met 
me with a sympathizing manner, took my hand, and said, " Is 
it really worth w r hile to take it so much to heart ! There were 
only two who hissed, the whole house beside took your part." 

" Hissed ! My part ! Have I been hissed ? " exclaimed I. 

It was quite comic ; one person assured me that this hiss- 
ing had been a triumph for me ; everybody had joined in ac- 
clamation, and " there was only one who hissed." 

After this, another person came and I asked him the 
number of those who hissed. "Two," said he. The next 
person said " three," and said positively there were no more. 
One of my most veracious friends, the naive, worthy Hartmann, 
now made his appearance ; he did not know what the others 
had said, and I asked him, upon his conscience, how many he 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 87 

had heard ; he laid his hand upon his heart, and said that, at 
the very highest, there were five. 

6i No," said I : " now I will ask nobody more ; the number 
grows just as with Falstaff ; here stands one who asserts that 
there was only one person who hissed. 

Shocked, and yet inclined to set it all right again, he re- 
plied, " Yes, that is possible, but then it was a strong, power- 
ful hiss." 

" The Bird in the Pear-tree " was ridiculed in several news- 
papers, and " A Poet's Bazaar " was noticed again only to be 
made sport of. I remember well that Oehlenschlager praised 
them both at this time. Heiberg, on the contrary, wrote in his 
journal of my dramatic trifle : — 

" It belongs to that kind of small creatures whose admission 
into our theatre cage it would be pedantic to oppose ; for we 
may say of it, that if it does no good, it does no harm either ; 
it is too little for that, too insignificant, and too innocent. As 
a piece to fill up an evening's entertainment, of which a 
theatre is in want, it may perhaps please many, and certainly 
will not hurt any one. It is, to be sure, not without some art- 
less and lyric beauty." 

Heiberg, as manager of the Royal Theatre, and as proprie- 
tor of the rejected piece, allowed the Casino Theatre ten years 
afterward to perform it. I had then grown up into a kinder 
generation. My little work was performed with great and 
lively acclamation, and it has often since been played. 

On the eighth of October, 1842, Weyse died ; he was my 
first noble protector. In earlier days we often met at Wulffs ; 
we worked together on " Kenilworth," but we never became in- 
timate friends. His life was as solitary as mine, and yet peo- 
ple liked to see him as well as I dare believe they liked to 
see me ; but I have the nature of a bird of passage, and fly 
over Europe ; his longest trip was to Roeskilde, where, in a 
certain family circle, he found a home, and where he could play 
fantasies on the great organ of the cathedral. At Roes- 
kilde is his grave. He could not bear travelling, and I re- 
member his humor when, upon returning from Greece and 
Constantinople, I made him a call. 

" See now, you have not been any further than I ! " said 



1 88 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

he ; " you have reached Crown-Prince Street, and looked out 
on the royal garden ; I do the same ; and you have thrown 
away ever so much money. Would you travel ? Go to Roes- 
kilde ; that is enough, until we visit moons and planets ! " 

The first time that " Kenilworth " was performed, I received 
a characteristic letter from him which begins thus : " Caris- 
sime domine poeta ! The dull-minded people in Copenhagen 
cannot understand what we are driving at in the finale of the 
second act of our opera," etc. " Kenilworth " was appointed 
for the funeral festival at the theatre ; it was Weyse's last and 
perhaps favorite work \ he had chosen the subject himself; he 
had himself written some parts of the text, and I am con- 
vinced that if his immortal soul in the other world still had 
his earthly thoughts, he would have enjoyed seeing this work 
brought him as a flower of honor ; but it was abandoned, and 
Shakespeare's tragedy, " Macbeth," for which Weyse had com- 
posed the music, was given ; yet I don't think it is the most 
characteristic of his compositions. 

On the day of burial, strangely enough, the corpse was not 
yet quite cold near the heart. I heard of it as I came with 
the funeral train to the house of mourning, and asked the phy- 
sicians for heaven's sake to examine it, and do all that they 
could to bring him to life again ; but they assured me after a 
close examination that he was dead and would stay dead ; 
that this kind of warmth was not unusual ; but I asked them 
finally to sever his arteries before they closed the coffin ; they 
would not do it. Oehlenschlager heard of it and came up to 
me, saying, " What ! would you have him dissected ! " — " Yes, 
rather than that he should awaken in the grave, and you too 
would rather have them do so to you when you die ! " — " I ! " 
exclaimed Oehlenschlager, and drew back. Alas ! Weyse was 
dead. 

By my last works, and by prudent economy, I had now 
saved a small sum of money, which I set apart for the purpose 
of a new journey to Paris. At the end of January, 1843, I ^ e ^ 
Copenhagen. In consideration of the advanced season,, I took 
the route by Funen, through Sleswick and Holstein. It was a 
wearisome and difficult journey until I reached Itzehoe and 
Breitenburg. Count Rantzau received me very heartily and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. I 89 

kindly ; I spent a few pleasant days with him at the old 
castle. The vernal storms raged, but the sun burst forth with 
its warm rays, and the larks sung over the marshy green. I 
visited all the places in the vicinity which I had before known. 
The days and evenings were a continual feast. 

I who always lived without thinking of politics or political 
parties, observed now for the first time a kind of variance be- 
tween the duchies and the kingdom. I had thought so little 
about the relation of these countries to each other, that in my 
" Bazaar " I had written in the dedication : " To my fellow- 
countryman the Holsteiner, Professor Ross ; " but I felt now 
that this matter of nationality was not as I had supposed 
it to be. I heard a lady talking of " our duke," meaning the 
King. " Why do you not call him king ? " I asked in my ig- 
norance of hostilities. 

" He is not our king, but our duke ! " replied she. Petty 7 
political irritations occurred. Count Rantzau, who loved the 
King, Denmark, and the Danes, and was besides a very atten- 
tive host, smoothed over w r hat was said in a jesting manner. 
" They are silly fools ! " he whispered to me, and I thought 
that it was eccentricity that I had met with, and not the pre- 
vailing opinion, which I began to fear. 

We learned that a conflagration had raged in Hamburg, 
which had ravaged the whole portion of the city near the Al- 
ster. A few new houses had since been rebuilt, but the most 
part lay still in ruins, with burnt beams and crumbling towers. 
At the " Jungfernstieg " and the " Esplanade " were erected 
rows of small brick shops, where the merchants, who had suf- 
fered by the fire, had their salesrooms. It was difficult for 
foreigners to find shelter. But I was fortunate enough to find 
entertainment under the best and most comfortable of roofs, 
that of Count Hoick, who was Danish postmaster, and I was 
received in his family as a dear guest. 

I spent happy hours here with the genial Speckter. He 
had just begun to draw those pictures for my tales, which are 
so admirable, so full of genius and humor ; they are to be 
seen in one of the English editions, and in one of the less for- 
tunate German translations, where " The Ugly Duckling " is 
translated by " The Green Duck," and has since passed in a 
French translation as " Le petit Canard vert." 



I9O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

There was not yet any railway over the Lunenburg heath ; 
we rode a whole night and day in the slow stage-coach by bad 
roads from Haarburg over Osnabriick to Diisseldorf, where I 
arrived on the very last day of the carnival, and saw in Ger- 
man shape what I had before seen in Roman. Cologne is 
said to be, among German towns, the place where they have 
the most magnificently arranged street processions. In Diis- 
seldorf the festival was favored by most lovely weather, as the 
reporters would say. I saw a funny parade : a cavalry troop of 
boys on foot, who managed the horses they made believe to 
ride on ; a comic Hall of Fools, — a parody on " The Wal- 
halla," which was open for visitors ; they told me that the 
painter Achenbach, whom I learned to know and appreciate, 
arranged the festival. Among the masters of the Diisseldorf 
school I recognized several old friends whom I knew on my 
first stay at Rome. 

I met a countryman, a native of Odense, Mr. Benzon. At 
home, as soon as he began to paint, he painted my portrait. 
It was the first one that had been made of me, and was quite 
horrible ; it looked like the shadow of a man, or like one who 
has been pressed between some leaves for several years, and 
was now taken out and found to be as dry as a mummy. The 
book-seller, Reitzel, bought it of him. Benzon had here in 
Diisseldorf risen to a place among artists, and had recently 
finished a beautiful picture, " Saint Knud," who was slain in 
the church of St. Albani, in Odense. 

I made a quiet journey by diligence, and by railroad, which 
was but partially finished, to Brussels, by way of Cologne and 
Liittich. Here I heard Alizard in Donizetti's " La Favorita." 
I wearied of seeing in the Gallery Rubens's fleshy, fair-haired 
women, with homely noses and faded clothes ; I felt solemnly 
affected in the magnificent churches, and lingered before the 
old, memorable Hotel de Ville, where Egmont was beheaded. 
The tower lifts itself up with its garniture and its points, — 
a wonderful, grand piece of Brussels lace. 

On the railway from here to Mons I leaned against the door 
to look out of the window, when it sprung open, for it was not 
locked ; and if my neighbor had not seen it and immediately 
grabbed me and held on tight, I should certainly have been 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



191 



hurled out ; as it was, I escaped with the fright only. It was 
spring-time in France ; the fields were green, the sun warm • 
I caught sight of St. Denis, passed the new fortifications of 
Paris, and soon was seated in my room in the Hotel Valois, 
Rue Richelieu, opposite the Library. 

Marmier had already, in the " Revue de Paris," written an 
article on me, " La Vie d'un Poete." He had also translated 
several of my poems into French, and had actually honored 
me with a poem which is printed in the above named " Revue." 
My name had thus reached, like a sound, the ears of some 
persons in the literary world, and I here met with a surpris- 
ingly friendly reception. 

I often visited at Victor Hugo's and enjoyed great kindness 
there, — a reception which Oehlenschlager in his " Life " com- 
plains that he did not find ; so I ought to feel flattered. At 
Victor Hugo's invitation I saw at the Theatre Frangais his 
abused tragedy, " Les Burggraves," which was every evening 
hissed and parodied at the smaller theatres. His wife was 
very handsome, and possessed that amiability so peculiar to 
French ladies which makes foreigners so entirely at home 
with them. 

Mr. and Mrs. Ancelot opened their house to me, and there I 
met Martinez de la Rosas and other remarkable men of these 
times. I was greatly taken with De la Rosas a long time 
before I knew who he was. His whole appearance, and the 
impression his conversation had made upon me, induced me 
to ask Madame Ancelot who that gentleman was. 

" Have I not presented you to him ? " said she ; " he is the 
statesman, the poet Martinez de la Rosas ! " She brought us 
together, told him who I was, and he asked after old Count 
Yoldi at Copenhagen ; and described then to the whole circle 
how beautifully and sympathizingly Frederick VI. had cared 
for the Spaniard, when he had asked his advice as to what 
party at home he ought to join, and when that which he joined 
lost power, the Danish king bestowed upon him an office and 
home in Denmark. The conversation turned soon entirely 
upon Denmark. A young diplomat, who had just returned 
from being present at the coronation of Christian VIII., gave 
us a peculiar, very kind, and animated description of Frederick's 



I92 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Castle and the festival there, but a description which sounded 
oddly to a Dane. He spoke of the mighty beech woods, the 
old Gothic castle built in the midst of the water, the richly 
gilt church, and — what sounded very droll since it seemed 
as if he believed it to be a custom in every-day life — that all 
the grand functionaries wore yellow and white silk-clothes, 
with feathers stuck in the barrettes and long trailing velvet 
mantles, which they throw over the arm when walking in the 
street. He had seen it himself ! and I admitted that it was 
so at the coronation. 

Lamartine seemed to me, in his domestic and in his whole 
personal appearance, to be the prince of them all. On my 
apologizing because I spoke such bad French, he replied 
that he was to blame, because he did not understand the 
northern languages, in which, as he had discovered in late 
years, there existed a fresh and vigorous literature, and where 
the poetical ground was so peculiar that you had only to stoop 
down to find an old golden horn. He asked about the Troll- 
hatta canal, and avowed a wish to visit Denmark and Stock- 
holm. . He recollected also our now reigning king, to whom, 
when as prince he was in Castellamare, he had paid his re- 
spects ; besides this, he exhibited, for a Frenchman, an extraor- 
dinary acquaintance with names and places in Denmark. 
On my departure he wrote a little poem for me, which I pre- 
serve amongst my dearest relics. 

I generally found the jovial Alexandre Dumas in bed, even 
long after mid-day 5 here he lay, with paper, pen, and ink, and 
wrote his newest drama. I found him thus one day ; he 
nodded kindly to me, and said, " Sit down a minute ; I have 
just now a visit from my muse ; she will be going directly." 
He wrote on 5 spoke aloud ; shouted a viva ! sprang out of 
bed, and said, " The third act is finished ! " 

He lived in the Hotel des Princes in Rue Richelieu, his wife 
was at Florence, his son, Dumas junior, who has since followed 
in his father's literary footsteps, had his own house in the city, 
" I live quite a la garfon" said Dumas, " so you must put 
up with what you find ! " One evening he escorted me about 
to the various theatres, that I might see life behind the 
scenes. We were at the Palais Royal, talked with Dejazet 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



193 



and Anais, wandered then, arm in arm, along the gay Boule- 
vard to the Theatre St. Martin. " Now they are just in the 
short petticoats ! " said Dumas ; " shall we go in ! " That we 
did, and behind scenes and curtains we wandered through 
the sea in the " Thousand and One Nights." There was a 
crowd of people, machinists, choristers, and dancers, and Du- 
mas carried me into the middle of the noisy crowd. When we 
returned home along the Boulevard we met a young man, who 
stopped us. " That is my son ! " said Alexandre Dumas : " he 
was born when I was eighteen years old ; now he is of the 
same age and has no son ! " He was in later years the well 
known " Dumas fils ! " 

I also have to thank him for my acquaintance with Rachel. 
I had not seen her act, when Alexandre Dumas asked me 
whether I had the desire to make her acquaintance. One 
evening, when she was to appear as Phcedra, he led me to 
the stage of the Theatre Francais. The representation had 
begun, and behind the scenes, where a folding screen had 
formed a sort of room, in which stood a table with refresh- 
ments, and a few ottomans, sat the young girl who, as an 
author has said, understands how to chisel living statues out 
of Racine's and Corneille's blocks of marble. She was thin 
and slenderly formed, and looked very young. She looked to 
me there, and more particularly so afterward in her own house, 
as an image of mourning ; as a young girl who has just wept 
out her sorrow, and will now let her thoughts repose in quiet. 
She accosted us kindly, in a deep, powerful voice. In the 
course of conversation with Dumas she forgot me. I stood 
there quite as one outside. Dumas observed it, said something 
handsome of me, and on that I ventured to take part in the 
discourse, although I had a depressing feeling that I stood 
before those who perhaps spoke the most beautiful French in 
all France. I said that I truly had seen much that was glori- 
ous and interesting, but that I never yet had seen a Rachel, 
and that on her account especially had I devoted the profits 
of my last work to a journey to Paris ; and as, in conclusion, 
I added an apology on account of my French, she smiled and 
said, "When you say anything so polite as that which you 
13 



i 9 4 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



have just said to me, to a Frenchwoman, she will always think 
that you speak well." 

When I told her that her fame had reached us in the North, 
she declared that it was her intention to go to St. Petersburg 
and Copenhagen. " And when I come to your city," she said, 
"you must be my defender, as you are the only 6ne there 
whom I know ; and in order that we may become acquainted, 
and as you tell me that you have come to Paris especially on 
my account, we must see one another frequently. You will be 
welcome to me. I see my friends at my house every Thursday. 
But duty calls," said she, and offering us her hand, she nodded 
kindly, and then stood a few paces from us on the stage, taller, 
quite different, and with the expression of the tragic muse her- 
self. Joyous acclamations ascended to where we sat. 

As a Northlander I cannot accustom myself to the French 
mode of acting tragedy. Rachel plays in this same style, but 
in her it appears to be nature itself ; it is as if all the others 
strove to imitate her. She is herself the French tragic muse, 
the others are only poor human beings. When Rachel plays, 
people fancy that all tragedy must be acted in this manner. 
It is in her truth and nature, but under another revelation 
from that with which we are acquainted in the North. 

At her house everything is rich and magnificent, perhaps 
too recherche. The innermost room was light-green, with shaded 
lamps and statuettes of French authors. In the salon, properly 
speaking, the color which prevailed principally in the carpets, 
curtains, and book-cases was crimson. She herself was dressed 
in black, probably as- she is represented in the well-known 
English steel engraving of her. Her guests consisted of 
gentlemen, — for the greater part artists and men of learning. 
I also heard a few titles amongst them. Richly appareled 
servants announced the names of the guests : tea was drunk 
and refreshments handed round, more in the German than 
the French style. 

Victor Hugo had told me that he found she understood the 
German language. I asked her, and she replied in German, 
"Ich kann es lesen ; ich bin ja in Lothringen geboren ; ich 
habe deutsche Biicher, sehn Sie hier ! " and she showed me 
Grillparzer's " Sappho," and then immediately continued the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 1 95 

conversation in French. She expressed her pleasure in acting 
the part of Sappho, and then spoke of Schiller's " Marie 
Stuart," which character she has personated in a French 
version of that play. I saw her in this part, and she gave the 
last act especially with such a composure and tragic feeling, 
that she might have been one of the best of German actresses ; 
but it was precisely in this very act that the French liked her 
least. 

" My countrymen," said she, " are not accustomed to this 
manner, and in this manner alone can the part be given. No 
one should be raving when the heart is almost broken with 
sorrow, and when he is about to take an everlasting farewell 
of his friends.' ' 

Her drawing-room was, for the most part, decorated with 
books, which were splendidly bound and arranged in handsome 
book-cases behind glass. A painting hung on the wall, which 
represented the interior of the theatre in London, where she 
stood forward on the stage, and flowers and garlands were 
thrown to her across the orchestra. Below this picture hung 
a pretty little book-shelf, holding what I called " the high no- 
bility among the poets," — Goethe, Schiller, Calderon, Shake- 
speare, etc. 

She asked me many questions respecting Germany and 
Denmark, art and the theatre ; and encouraged me with a kind 
smile around her grave mouth, when I stumbled in French 
and stopped for a moment to collect myself that I might not 
stick quite fast. 

" Only speak," said she. " It is true that you do not speak 
French well. I have heard many foreigners speak my native 
language better 3 but their conversation has not been nearly 
as interesting as yours. I understand the sense of your words 
perfectly, and that is the principal thing which interests me in 
you." 

The last time we parted she wrote the following words in my 
album : " L'art c'est le vrai ! ' JPespere que cet aphorisme ne 
semblera pas paradoxal a un ecrivain aussi distingue que M. 
Andersen." 

I perceived amiability of character in Alfred de Vigny. 
He has married an English lady, and that which is best in both 



I 96 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

nations seemed to unite in his house. The last evening which 
I spent in Paris, he himself, who is possessed of intellectual 
status and worldly wealth, came almost at midnight to my 
lodging in the Rue Richelieu, ascended the many steps, and 
brought me his works under his arm. So much cordiality 
beamed in his eyes, and he seemed to be so full of kind- 
ness toward me, that I felt affected by our separation. 

I also became acquainted with the sculptor David. There 
was a something in his demeanor and in his straightforward 
manner that reminded me of Thorwaldsen and Bissen, espe- 
cially of the latter. We did not meet till toward the conclusion 
of my residence in Paris. He lamented it, and said that he 
would execute a bust of me if I would remain there longer. 

When I said, " But you know nothing of me as a poet, and 
cannot tell whether I deserve it or not," he looked earnestly 
in my face, clapped me on the shoulder, and said, " I have, 
however, read you yourself before your books. You are a 
poet." 

At the Countess Bocarme's, where I met with Balzac, I 
saw an old lady, the expression of whose countenance at- 
tracted my attention. There was something so animated, so 
cordial in it, and everybody gathered about her. The Coun- 
tess introduced me to her, and I heard that she was Madame 
Reybaud, the authoress of " Les Epaves," the little story which 
I had made use of for my drama of " The Mulatto." I 
told her all about it, and of the representation of the piece, 
which interested her so much that she became from this 
evening my especial protectress. We went out one evening 
together and exchanged ideas. She corrected my French, 
and allowed me to repeat what did not appear correct to her. 
She is a lady of rich mental endowments, with a clear insight 
into the world, and she showed maternal kindness toward me. 

Balzac, with whom, as I have already said, I made acquaint- 
ance in the saloon of the Countess Bocarme, was an elegant 
and neatly dressed gentleman, whose teeth shone white be- 
tween his red lips ; he seemed to be very merry, but a man 
of few words, at least in society. A lady, who wrote verses, 
took hold of us, drew us to a sofa, and placed herself between 
us ; she told us how small she seemed to be when seated be- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 197 

tween us. I turned my head and met behind her back 
Balzac's satirical and laughing face, with his mouth half open 
and pursed up in a queer manner ; that was properly our 
first meeting. 

One day I was going through the Louvre, and met a man 
who was the very image of Balzac in figure, gait, and features, 
but the man was dressed in miserable tattered clothes, which 
were even quite dirty \ his boots were not brushed, his panta- 
loons were spattered with mud, and the hat was crushed and 
worn out. I stopped in surprise ; the man smiled at me : I 
passed him, but the resemblance was too strong ; I turned, 
ran after him, and said : " Are you not M. Balzac ? " He 
laughed, showed his w T hite teeth, and only said, " To-morrow 
Monsieur Balzac starts for St. Petersburg ! " He pressed my 
hand, — his was soft and delicate, — nodded, and went away. 
It could not be other than Balzac : perhaps in that attire he had 
been out on an author's investigation into the mysteries of 
Paris ; or, was the man perhaps quite another person, who 
knew that he resembled Balzac strongly, and wished to mys- 
tify a stranger ? A few days after I talked with Countess 
Bocarme, who gave me a message from Balzac — he had left 
for St. Petersburg. 

I also again met with Heine. He had married since I was 
last here. I found him in indifferent health, but full of en- 
ergy, and so friendly and natural in his behavior toward me, 
that I felt no timidity in exhibiting myself to him as I was. 
One day he had been telling his wife in French my story of 
" The Constant Tin Soldier, " and, whilst he said that I w r as the 
author of this story, he introduced me to her. 

" First, are you going to publish your travels ? " he asked ; 
and when I said No, he proceeded, " Well then I will show 
you my wife." She was a lively, pretty young lady. A troop 
of children — " Some w r e've borrowed of a neighbor, not 
having any of our own," said Heine — played about in their 
room. We two played with them whilst Heine copied out 
one of his last poems for me. 

I perceived in him no pain-giving, sarcastic smile ; I only 
heard the pulsation of a German heart, w T hich is always per- 
ceptible in the songs, and which must live. 



I98 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Through the means of the many people I was acquainted 
with here, — among whom I might enumerate many others, as, 
for instance, Kalkbrenner, Gathy, etc., — my residence in Paris 
was made very cheerful and rich in pleasure. I did not feel 
myself like a stranger there : I met with a friendly reception 
among the greatest and best. It was like a payment by an- 
ticipation of the talent which was in me, and through which 
they expected that I would some time prove them not to have 
been mistaken. 

Whilst I was in Paris, I received from Germany, where 
already several of my works were translated and read, a de- 
lightful and encouraging proof of friendship. A German fam- 
ily, one of the most highly cultivated and amiable with whom 
I am acquainted, had read my writings with interest, especially 
the little biographical sketch prefixed to " Only a Fiddler," 
and felt the heartiest good-will toward me, with whom they 
were not then personally acquainted. They wrote to me, 
expressed their thanks for my works and the pleasure they 
had derived from, them, and offered me a kind welcome to 
their house if I would visit it on my return home. There was 
something extremely cordial and natural in this letter, which 
was the first that I received of this kind in Paris, and it also 
formed a remarkable contrast to that which was sent to me 
from my native land in the year 1833, when I was here for the 
first time. 

In this way I found myself, through my writings, adopted, 
as it were, into a family to which since then I gladly betake 
myself, and where I know that it is not only as the poet, but 
as the man, that I am beloved. In how many instances have 
I not experienced the same kindness in foreign countries ! I 
will mention one for the sake of its peculiarity. 

There lived in Saxony a wealthy and benevolent family ; 
the lady of the house read my romance of " Only a Fiddler," 
and the impression of this book was such that she vowed that 
if ever, in the course of her life, she should meet with a poor 
child which was possessed of great musical talents, she would 
not allow it to perish as the poor Fiddler had done. A 
musician who had heard her say this, brought to her soon 
after, not one, but two poor boys, assuring her of their talent 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



199 



and reminding her of her promise. She kept her word : both 
boys were received into her house, were educated by her, and 
are now in the Conservatorium ; the youngest of them played 
before me, and I saw that his countenance was happy and 
joyful. The same thing, perhaps, might have happened ; 
the same excellent lady might have befriended these chil- 
dren without my book having been written : but notwithstand- 
ing this, my book is now connected with it as a link in the 
chain. 

On my return home from Paris, I went along the Rhine ; I 
knew that the poet Frieligrath, to whom the King of Prussia 
had given a pension, was residing in one of the Rhine towns. 
The picturesque character of his poems had delighted me 
extremely, and I wished to talk with him. I stopped at several 
towns on the Rhine and inquired after him. In St. Goar, I 
was shown the house in which he lived. I found him sitting 
at his writing table, and he appeared annoyed at being dis- 
turbed by a stranger. I did not mention my name ; but 
merely said that I could not pass St. Goar without paying my 
respects to the poet Frieligrath. 

" That is very kind of you," said he, in a very cold tone ; 
and then asked who I was. 

" We have both of us one and the same friend, Chamisso ! " 
replied I, and at these words he leapt up exultantly. 

" You are then Andersen ! " he exclaimed ; threw his arms 
around my neck, and his honest eyes beamed with joy. 

" Now you will stop several days here," said he. I told 
him that I could only stay a couple of hours, because I was 
travelling with some of my countrymen who were waiting for 
me. 

" You have a great many friends in little St. Goar," said 
he j " it is but a short time since I read aloud your novel of 
" O. T." to a large circle ; one of these friends I must, at all 
events, fetch here, and you must also see my wife. Yes, 
indeed, you do not know that you had something to do with 
our being married." 

He then related to me how my novel, " Only a Fiddler," had 
caused them to exchange letters, and then led to their ac- 
quaintance, which acquaintance had ended in their being a 



200 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

married couple. He called her, mentioned to her my name, 
and I was regarded as an old friend. 

In Bonn, where I passed the night, I called on old Moritz 
Arndt, he who afterward became so bitter against the Danes. 
Then I only knew him as -the author of the beautiful and 
powerful song : " What is the German father-land ? " I saw 
before me a vigorous, ruddy old man with silvery hair • he 
spoke Swedish to me, a language which he had learnt, when, 
as refugee on Napoleon's account, he visited our neighboring 
country ; he was a youthful and brisk old man ; I was not un- 
known to him, and it seemed to me that he took so much inter- 
est in me because I was a Scandinavian. In the course of our 
conversation a stranger was announced : neither of us heard 
his name ; he was a young, handsome man with a bold, sun- 
burnt face. He sat quietly down by the door and did not 
speak until Arndt showed me out, when he rose, and Arndt 
exclaimed joyfully, " Emanuel Geibel ! " Yes, it was he, the 
young poet from Liibeck, whose fresh, beautiful songs in a 
short time echoed through the German countries, and to whom 
the King of Prussia had given a kind of pension as well as to 
Frieligrath : Geibel was just going to visit Frieligrath at St. 
Goar, and was to spend several months with him. Now he 
would not let me go till I had made acquaintance with the 
poet. Geibel was a very handsome, powerful, and fresh young 
man ; as he stood by the side of the hale old poet, I saw in 
those two, the young and the old, the picture of Poetry always 
blooming. 

" The child of fortune," an English author once called me, 
and I must gratefully acknowledge all the blessings I have 
enjoyed during my life ; the great opportunity I have had to 
meet with and become acquainted with the most noble and 
best men of my time. I tell all this as I have told before that 
which was miserable, humiliating, and depressing; and if I 
have done so in the spirit which was at work in my soul, it 
will not be called pride or vanity ; neither of them would 
assuredly be the proper name for it. It is from abroad that I 
have received acknowledgment and honor ; but people may 
perhaps ask at home, Has he then never been attacked in for- 
eign countries ? I must reply, No ! 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 201 

No regular attack has been made upon me, at least they 
have never at home called my attention to any such, and there- 
fore there certainly cannot have been anything of the kind, — 
with the exception of one which made its appearance in Ger- 
many, but which originated in Denmark, at the very moment 
when I was in Paris. 

A certain Mr. Boas made a journey at that time through 
Scandinavia, and wrote a book on the subject. In this he 
gave a sort of survey of Danish literature, which he also pub- 
lished in the journal called " Die Grenzboten ; " in this I was 
very severely handled as a man and as a poet. . Several other 
Danish poets also, as, for instance, Christian Winther, have an 
equally great right to complain. Mr. Boas had drawn his 
information out of the miserable gossip of every-day life ; his 
work excited attention in Copenhagen, but nobody there 
would allow themselves to be considered as his informants ; 
nay, even Hoist the poet, who, as may be seen from the work, 
travelled with him through Sweden, and had received him at 
his house in Copenhagen, on this occasion published, in one 
of the most widely circulated of our papers, a declaration that 
he was in no way connected with Mr. Boas. 

Mr. Boas had in Copenhagen attached himself to a partic- 
ular clique consisting of a few young men 5 he had heard them, 
full of lively spirits, talking during the day of the Danish 
poets and their writings \ he had then gone home, written 
down what he had heard, and afterward published it in his 
work. This was, to use the mildest term, inconsiderate. 
That my " Improvisatore " and " Only a Fiddler " did not 
please him, is a matter of taste, and to that I must submit 
myself. But when he, before the whole of Germany, where 
probably people will presume that what he has written is true, 
if he declare it to be, as is the case, the universal judgment 
against me in my native land ■ when he, I say. declared me 
before the whole of Germany to be the most haughty of men, 
he inflicts upon me a deeper wound than he perhaps imagined. 
He conveyed the voice of a party, formerly hostile to me, into 
foreign countries. Nor is he true even in that which he rep- 
resents ; he gives circumstances as facts, which never took 
place. 



202 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

In Denmark what he had written could not injure me, and 
many have declared themselves afraid of coming into contact 
with any one who printed everything which he heard. His 
book was read in Germany, the public of which is now also 
mine ; and I believe, therefore, that I may here say how 
faulty is his view of Danish literature and Danish poets — in 
what manner his book was received in my native land, and 
that people there know in what way it was put together. 
But after I have expressed myself thus on this subject I will 
gladly offer Mr. Boas my hand ; and if, on his next visit to 
Denmark, no .other poet will receive him, I will do my utmost 
for him ; I know that he will not be able to judge me more 
severely when we know each other than when we knew each 
other not. His judgment would also have been quite of an- 
other character had he come to Denmark but one year later ; 
things changed very much in a year's ' time. • Then the tide 
had turned in my favor \ I then had published my new chil- 
dren's stories, of which from that moment to the present there 
prevailed, through the whole of my native land, but one un- 
changing honorable opinion. When the edition of my collec- 
tion of stories came out at Christmas, 1843, the reaction 
began ; acknowledgment of my merits was made, and favor 
shown me in Denmark, and since that time I have no cause 
for complaint. I have obtained and I obtain in my own land 
that which I deserve — nay, perhaps much more. 

I will now turn to those little stories which in Denmark 
have been placed by every one, without any hesitation, higher 
than anything else I had hitherto written. 

In my book " In the Hartz Mountains " one finds properly 
my first wonder story, in the section " Brunswick," where it 
appears as a bit of irony in the drama " Three Days in the 
Life of a Looking-glass ; " in the same book one also finds 
the first suggestion of " The Little Mermaid ; " the description 
of the Elves belongs quite to this class of writing. Only a few 
months after the " Improvisatore " appeared, in 1835, 1 brought 
out my first volume of " Wonder Stories," 1 which at that time 

1 The Danish term Eventyr, used by Andersen, is not properly rendered 
by any one word in English ; it includes those stories in which the marvel- 
ous and superhuman predominate, just as Historier, used by Andersen 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 203 

was not so very much thought of. One monthly critical journal 
even complained that an author who had taken s-uch a step 
forward in the " Improvisatore," should immediately fall back 
with anything so childish as the tales. I reaped a harvest of 
blame, precisely where people ought to have acknowledged 
the advantage of my mind producing something in a new 
direction. Several of my friends, whose judgment was of 
value to me, counseled me entirely to abstain from writing 
tales, as these were a something for which I had no talent. 
Others were of opinion that I had better, first of all, study the 
French fairy tale. 

The " Monthly Journal of Literature " paid no attention to 
the book, nor has it done so since. " Dannora," edited and 
published by J. N. Host, was in 1836 the only one that gave a 
notice, which reads amusingly now, though at the time it natur- 
ally grieved me. The reviewer says that " These ' Wonder 
Stories ' will be able to amuse children, but they are so far from 
containing anything instructive that the critic hardly ventures to 
recommend them as harmless reading ; at least nobody will 
maintain that a child's sense of decency will be sharpened 
when it reads about a princess who rides in her sleep on a 
dog's back to a soldier who kisses her, after which she her- 
self, wide-awake, tells of this fine adventure — as a wonderful 
dream," etc. The story of the " Princess on Pease," the re- 
viewer finds, h^s no wit, and it strikes him " not only as indel- 
icate but positively without excuse, as putting the notion into a 
child's head that a lady of such rank must always be excess- 
ively refined." The reviewer concludes with the wish that 
the author may not waste any more time in writing wonder 
stories for children. I would willingly have discontinued 
writing them, but they forced themselves from me. 

In the volume which I first published, I had, like Musaus, 
but in my own manner, related old stories, which I had heard 
as a child. The tone in which they still sounded in my ears 

for certain other of his stories, denotes those which are more matter of 
fact, more what we call narrative. The title Wonder Stories has been used 
in this edition of Andersen's writings, though with regret, for it is a some- 
what awkward and affected term. Under this conviction the title of this 
autobiography has been made to read The Story of My Life, instead of, 
more exactly, The Wonder Story of My Life. — Editor. 



204 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

seemed a very natural one to me, but I knew very well that 
the learned critics would censure the style of talk, so, to quiet 
them I called them "Wonder Stories told for Children," al- 
though my intention was that they should be for both young 
and old. The volume concluded with one which was original, 
"Little Ida's Flowers," and seemed to have given the great- 
est pleasure, although it bore a tolerably near affinity to a 
story of Hoffman's, and I had already given it in substance 
in my " Foot Journey." In my increasing disposition for 
children's stories, I therefore followed my own impulse, and 
invented them mostly myself. In the following year a new 
volume came out, and soon after that a third, in which the 
longest story, " The Little Mermaid," was my own invention. 
This story, in an especial manner, created an interest which 
was only increased by the following volumes. One of these 
came out every Christmas, and before long no Christmas-tree 
could exist without my stories. 

Some of our first comic actors made the attempt of relating 
my little stories from the. stage ; it was something new, and a 
complete change from the declamatory poetry which had been 
heard to satiety. " The Constant Tin Soldier," therefore, " The 
Swineherd," and "The Top and Ball," were told from the 
royal stage, and from those of private theatres, and were well 
received. In order that the reader might be placed in the 
proper point of view, with regard to the manner in which I 
told the stories, I had called my first volume " Stories told for 
Children." I had written my narrative down upon paper, 
exactly in the language, and with the expressions in w T hich I 
had myself related them, by word of mouth, to the little ones, 
and I had arrived at the conviction that people of different 
ages were equally amused with them. The children made 
themselves merry for the most part over what might be called 
the actors ; older people, on the contrary, were interested in 
the deeper meaning. The stories furnished reading for chil- 
dren and grown people, and that assuredly is a difficult task 
for those who will write children's stories. They met with 
open doors and open hearts in Denmark ; everybody read 
them. I now removed the words, "told for children," from 
my title, and published three volumes of " New Stories," all 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 205 

of which were of my own invention, and were received in 
my own country with the greatest favor. I could not wish 
it greater ; I felt a real anxiety in consequence, a fear of not 
being able to justify afterward such an honorable award of 
praise. 

A refreshing sunshine streamed into my heart ; I felt courage 
and joy, and was filled with a living desire of still more and 
more developing my powers in this direction, — of studying 
more thoroughly this class of writing, and of observing still 
more attentively the rich wells of nature out of which I must 
create it. If attention be paid to the order in which my stories 
are written, it certainly will be seen that there is in them 
a gradual progression, a clearer working out of the idea, a 
greater discretion in the use of agency, and, if I may so speak, 
a more healthy tone and a more natural freshness may be 
perceived. 

As one step by step toils up a steep hill, I had at home 
climbed upward, and now beheld myself recognized anc 
honored, appointed a distinct place in the literature of rny 
country. This recognition and kindness at home atoned for 
all the hard words that the critics had spoken. Within me 
was clear sunshine • there came a sense of rest, a feeling that 
all, even the bitter in my life, had been needful for my develop- 
ment and my fortune. 

My " Stories " were translated into most of the European 
languages ; several versions in German, as also in English and 
French, followed and continued still to be issued ; translations 
have been published also in Swedish, Flemish, Dutch etc., and 
by following the path our Lord has shown me, I have been 
favored more than if I had followed the way of criticism, that 
advised me " to study French models." If I had done so, I 
should scarcely have been translated into French, or, as now is 
the case, been compared in one of the French editions with 
Lafontaine and my " Stories " with his " fables immortelles," 
— " Nouveau Lafontaine, il fait parler les betes avec esprit, 
il s'associe a leurs peines, a leurs plaisirs, semble devenir leur 
confidentjleur interprete, et sait leur creer un langage si naif, 
si piquant, et si naturel qu'il ne semble que la reproduction 
fidele de ce qu'il a veritablement entendu ; " neither should I 



206 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

have attained, at least in one direction, that influence upon the 
literature of my country which I hope I have. 

From 1834 till 1852, wonder stories followed in various 
volumes and in several different publications, when they were 
issued in one collection in an illustrated edition, — the later 
ones classed under the title " Tales " {Historier), a. name not 
chosen arbitrarily ; but of this I will say a few words further 
on. 



CHAPTER XI. 

AT this period of my life I made an acquaintance which 
was of great moral and intellectual importance to me. 
I have already spoken of several persons and public charac- 
ters who have had influence on me as a poet ; but none of 
these have had more, nor in a nobler sense of the word, than 
the lady to whom I here turn myself, — she, through whom I, 
at the same time, was enabled to forget my own individual 
self, to feel that which is holy in art, and to become ac- 
quainted with the command which God has given to genius. 

I now turn back to the year 1840. One day in the hotel in 
which I lived in Copenhagen, I saw the name of Jenny Lind 
among those of the strangers from Sweden. I was aware at 
that time that she was the first singer in Stockholm. I had 
been that same year in this neighbor country, and had there 
met with honor and kindness : I thought, therefore, that it 
would not be unbecoming in me to pay a visit to the young 
artist. She was, at this time, entirely unknown out of Sweden, 
so that I was convinced that, even in Copenhagen, her name 
was known only by few. She received me very courteously, 
but yet distantly, almost coldly. She was, as she said, on a 
journey with her father to South Sweden, and had come over 
to Copenhagen for a few days in order that she might see this 
city. We again parted distantly, and I had the impression of 
a very ordinary character which soon passed away from my 
mind. 

In the autumn of 1843, Jenny Lind came again to Copen- 
hagen. One of my friends, our clever ballet-master, Bournon- 
ville, who has married a Swedish lady, a friend of Jenny Lind, 
informed me of her arrival here, and told me that she remem- 
bered me very kindly, and that now she had read my writings. 
He entreated me to go with him to her, and to employ all my 
persuasive art to induce her to take a few parts at the Theatre 



208 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Royal ; I should, he said, be then quite enchanted with what 
I should hear. 

I was not now received as a stranger; she cordially ex- 
tended to me her hand, and spoke of my writings and of Miss 
Fredrika Bremer, who also was her affectionate friend. The 
conversation soon turned on her appearance in Copenhagen, 
and of this Jenny Lind declared that she stood in fear. 

" I have never made my appearance," said she, " out of 
Sweden \ everybody in my native land is so affectionate and 
kind to me, and if I made my appearance in Copenhagen and 
should be hissed ! — I dare not venture on it ! " 

I said, that I, it was true, could not pass judgment on her 
singing, because I had never heard it, neither did I know how 
she acted, but nevertheless I was convinced that such was the 
disposition at this moment in Copenhagen, that only a moder- 
ate voice and some knowledge of acting would be successful ; 
I believed that she might safely venture. 

Bournonville's persuasion obtained for the Copenhageners 
the greatest enjoyment which they ever had. 

Jenny Lind made her first appearance among them as Alice 
in " Robert le Diable ; " it was like a new revelation in the 
realms of art ; the youthfully fresh voice forced itself into every 
heart ; here reigned truth and nature ; everything was full of 
meaning and intelligence. At one concert Jenny Lind sang 
her Swedish songs ; there was something so peculiar in this, 
so bewitching ; people thought nothing about the concert 
room'; the popular melodies uttered by a being so purely 
feminine, and bearing the universal stamp of genius, exercised 
their omnipotent sway ; the whole of Copenhagen was in 
raptures. Jenny Lind was the first singer to whom the Danish 
students gave a serenade : torches blazed around the hospita- 
ble villa where the serenade was given : she expressed her 
thanks by again singing some Swedish songs, and I then saw 
her hasten into the darkest corner and weep for emotion. 

" Yes, yes," said she, " I will exert myself, I will endeavor ; 
I will be better qualified than I am when I again come to 
Copenhagen." 

On the stage she was the great artiste who rose above all 
those around her ; at home, in her own chamber, a sensitive 
young girl with all the humility and piety of a child. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 209 

Her appearance in Copenhagen made an epoch in the 
history of our opera ; it showed me art in its sanctity ; I had 
beheld one of its vestals. She journeyed back to Stockholm, 
and from there Fredrika Bremer wrote to me : " With regard 
to Jenny Lind as a singer, we are both of us perfectly agreed ; 
she stands as high as any artist of our time can stand ; but as 
yet you do not know her in her full greatness. Speak to her 
about her art, and you will wonder at the expansion of her 
mind, and will see her countenance beaming with inspiration. 
Converse then with her of God, and of the holiness of religion, 
and you will see tears in those innocent eyes ; she is great as 
an artist, but she is still greater in her pure human exist- 
ence ! " 

In the following year I was in Berlin ; the conversation 
with Meyerbeer turned upon Jenny Lind ; he had heard her 
sing her Swedish songs and was transported by them. 

" But how does she act ? " asked he. 

I spoke in raptures of her acting, and gave him at the same 
time some idea of her representation of Alice. He said to 
me that perhaps it might be possible for him to induce her to 
come to Berlin. 

It is sufficiently well known that she made her appearance 
there, threw every one into astonishment and delight, and won 
for herself in Germany a European name. Last autumn she 
came again to Copenhagen, and the enthusiasm was incredible ; 
the glory of renown makes genius perceptible to every one. 
People bivouacked regularly before the theatre, to obtain a 
ticket. Jenny Lind appeared still greater than ever in her 
art, because one had an opportunity of seeing her in many 
and such extremely different parts. Her Norma is plastic ; 
every attitude might serve as the most beautiful model to a 
sculptor, and yet people felt that those were the inspiration of 
the moment, and had not been studied before the glass. 
Norma is no raving Italian ; she is the suffering, sorrowing 
woman — the woman possessed of a heart to sacrifice herself 
for an unfortunate rival — the woman to whom, in the violence 
of the moment, the thought may suggest itself of murdering 
the children of a faithless lover, but who is immediately dis- 
armed when she gazes into the eyes of the innocent ones. 
14 



2 IO THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

" Norma, thou holy priestess ! " sings the chorus, and Jenny 
Lind has comprehended and shows to us this holy priestess in 
the aria, " Casta diva." In Copenhagen she sang all her parts 
in Swedish, and the other singers sang theirs in Danish, and 
the two kindred languages mingled very beautifully together ; 
there was no jarring 3 even in the " Daughter of the Regiment," 
where there is a deal of dialogue, the Swedish had something 
agreeable : and what acting ! nay, the word itself is a contra- 
diction — it was nature ; anything as true never before ap- 
peared on the stage. She shows us perfectly the true child 
of nature grown up in the camp, but an inborn nobility per- 
vades every movement. The Daughter of the Regimeni and 
the Somnambule are certainly Jenny Lind's most unsurpass- 
able parts ; no second can take their places in these beside 
her. People laugh, they cry ; it does them as much good as 
going to church ; they become better for it People feel that 
God is in art ; and where God stands before us face to face 
there is a holy church. 

" There will not in a whole century," said Mendelssohn, 
speaking to me of Jenny Lind, " be born another being so 
gifted as she ; " and his words expressed my full conviction ; 
one feels, as she makes her appearance on the stage, that she 
is a pure vessel, from which a holy draught will be presented 
to us. 

There is not anything which can lessen the impression 
which Jenny Lind's greatness on the stage makes, except her 
own personal character at home. An intelligent and child- 
like disposition exercises here its astonishing power ; she is 
happy, — belonging, as it were, no longer to the world ; a peace- 
ful, quiet home, is the object of her thoughts ; and yet she 
loves art with her whole soul, and feels her vocation in it. A 
noble, pious disposition like hers cannot be spoiled by homage. 
On one occasion only did I hear her express her joy in her 
talent and her self-consciousness. It was during her last 
residence in Copenhagen. Almost every evening she appeared 
either in the opera or at concerts ; every hour was in requisition. 
She heard of a society, the object of which was to assist un- 
fortunate children, and to take them out of the hands of their 
parents by whom they were misused, and compelled either to 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 21 1 

beg or steal, and to place them in other and better circum- 
stances. Benevolent people subscribed annually a small sum 
each for their support, nevertheless the means for this excellent 
purpose were small. 

" But have I not still a disengaged evening ? " said she ; 
" let me give a night's performance for the benefit of these 
poor children \ but we will have double prices ! " 

Such a performance was given, and returned large pro- 
ceeds ; when she was informed of this, and that, by this 
means, a number of poor children would be benefited for sev- 
eral years, her countenance beamed, and the tears filled her 
eyes. 

" Is it not beautiful," said she, " that I can sing so ! " 

I value her with the feeling of a brother, and I regard 
myself as happy that I know and understand such a spirit. 
God give to her that peace, that quiet happiness which she 
wishes for herself ! 

Through Jenny Lind I first became sensible of the holiness 
there is in art \ through her I learned that one must forget 
one's self in the service of the Supreme. No books, no men 
have had a better or a more ennobling influence on me as the 
poet, than Jenny Lind, and I therefore have spoken of her so 
long and so warmly here. 

I have made the happy discovery by experience, that inas- 
much as art and life are more clearly understood by me, so 
much more sunshine from without has streamed into my soul. 
What blessings have not compensated me for the former dark 
days ! Repose and certainty have forced themselves into my 
heart. Such repose can easily unite itself with the changing 
life of travel • I feel myself everywhere at home, attach myself 
easily to people, and they give me in return confidence and 
cordiality.' 

In the summer of 1844 I once more visited North Germany. 
An intellectual and amiable family in Oldenburg had invited 
me in the most friendly manner to spend some time at their 
house. Count von Rantzau-Breitenburg repeated also in his 
letters how welcome I should be to him. I set out on the 
journey, and this journey was, if not one of my longest, still 
one of my most interesting:. 



212 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I saw the rich marsh-land in its summer luxuriance, and 
made with Rantzau several interesting little excursions. Brei- 
tenburg lies in the middle of woods on the river Stor ; the 
steam voyage to Hamburg gives animation to the little river ; 
the situation is picturesque, and life in the castle itself is 
comfortable and pleasant. I could devote myself wholly to 
reading and poetry, because I was just as free as the bird in 
the air, and I was as much cared for as if I had been a be- 
loved relation of the family. Alas ! it was the last time that I 
came hither ; Count Rantzau had, even then, a presentiment 
of. his approaching death. One day we met in the garden; 
he seized my hand, pressed it warmly, expressed his pleasure 
in my talents being acknowledged abroad, and his friendship 
for me, adding, in conclusion, " Yes, my dear young friend, 
God only knows, but I have the firm belief that this year is 
the last time when we two shall meet here ; my days will 
soon have run out their full course." He looked at me with 
so grave an expression that it touched* my heart deeply, but 
I knew not what to say. We were near to the chapel ; he 
opened a little gate between some thick hedges, and we stood 
in a garden, in which was a turfed grave and a seat be- 
side it. 

" Here you will find me, when you come the next time to 
Breitenburg," said he, and his sorrowful words were true. 
He died the following winter in Wiesbaden. I lost in him a 
friend, a protector, a noble, excellent heart. 

When I, on the first occasion, went to Germany, I visited 
the Hartzgebirge and Saxon Switzerland. Goethe was still liv- 
ing. It was my most heartfelt wish to see him. It was not 
far from the Hartz to Weimar, but I had no letters of intro- 
duction to him, and, at that time, not one line of my writings 
was translated. Many persons had described Goethe to me 
as a very proud man, and the question arose whether indeed 
he would receive me. I doubted it, and determined not to go 
to Weimar until I should have written some work which 
would convey my name to Germany. I succeeded in this, 
but alas ! Goethe was already dead. 

I had made the acquaintance of his daughter-in-law, Mrs. 
von Goethe, born Pogwitsch, at the house of Mendelssohn- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



213 



Bartholdy, in Leipsic, on my return from Constantinople \ this 
spirituelle lady received me with much kindness. She told 
me that her son Walter had been my friend for a long time \ 
that as a boy he had made a whole play out of my " Improvi- 
sator " ; that this piece had been performed in Goethe's 
house; and lastly, that Walter had once wished to go to 
Copenhagen to make my acquaintance. I thus had now 
friends in Weimar. 

An extraordinary desire impelled me to see this city where 
Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder had lived, and from 
which so much light had streamed forth over the world. I 
approached that land which had been rendered sacred by 
Luther, by the strife of the Minnesingers on the W T artburg, 
and by the memory of many noble and great events. 

On the 24th of June, the birthday of the Grand Duke, I 
arrived a stranger in the friendly town. Everything indicated 
the festivity which was then going forward, and the young 
prince was received with great rejoicing in the theatre, where 
a new opera was being given. I did not think how firmly 
the most glorious and the best of all those whom I here saw 
around me would grow into my heart \ how many of my 
future friends sat around me here — how dear this city would 
become to me — in Germany, my second home. I was invited 
by Goethe's worthy friend, the excellent Chancellor Miiller, 
and I met with the most cordial reception from him. By 
accident I here met, on my first call, with the Kammerherr 
Beaulieu de Marconnay, whom I had known in Oldenburg ; 
he was now living in Weimar. He invited me to remove to 
his house. In the course of a few minutes I was established 
as his guest, and I felt * Q it is good to be here." 

There are people whom it only requires a few days to know 
and to love ; I won in Beaulieu, in these few days, a friend, 
as I believe, for my whole life. He introduced me into the 
family circle ; the amiable chancellor received me equally cor- 
dially ; and I who had, on my arrival, fancied myself quite 
forlorn, because Mrs. von Goethe and her son Walter were in 
Vienna, was now known in Weimar, and well received in all 
its circles. 

The reigning Grand Duke and Duchess gave me so gra- 



214 THR ST0RY 0F MY LIFE - 

cious and kind a reception as made a deep impression upon 
me. After I had been presented, I was invited to dine, and 
soon after received an invitation to visit the hereditary Grand 
Duke and his lady at the hunting seat of Ettersburg, which 
stands high, and close to an extensive forest. The old fash- 
ioned furniture within the house, and the distant views from 
the park into the Hartz Mountains, produced immediately a 
peculiar impression. All the young peasants had assembled 
at the castle to celebrate the birthday of their beloved young 
Duke ; climbing-poles, from which fluttered handkerchiefs and 
ribbons, were erected ; fiddles sounded, and people danced 
merrily under the branches of the large and flowering lime- 
trees. Sabbath splendor, contentment, and happiness were 
diffused over the whole. 

The young and but new married princely pair seemed to be 
united by true heartfelt sentiment. The heart must be able 
to forget the star on the breast under which it beats, if its 
possessor wishes to remain long free and happy in a court ; 
and such a heart, certainly one of the noblest and best which 
beats, is possessed by Karl Alexander of S axe- Weimar. I 
had the happiness of making a long enough stay to establish 
this belief. During this, my first residence here, I came 
several times to the happy Ettersburg. The young Duke 
showed me the garden, and the tree on the trunk of which 
Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland had cut their names ; nay even 
Jupiter himself had wished to add his to theirs, for his thun- 
der-bolt had splintered it in one of the branches. 

The intellectual Mrs. von Gross (Amalia Winter), Chan- 
cellor von Muller, — who was able to illustrate the times of 
Goethe and to explain his " Faust," — and the soundly honest 
and child-like minded Eckermann, belonged to the circle at 
Ettersburg. The evenings passed like a spiritual dream ; 
alternately some one read aloud ; even I ventured, for the 
first time in a foreign language to me, to read one of my own 
tales,— "The Constant Tin Soldier." 

Chancellor von Muller accompanied me to the princely 
burial-place, where Karl August sleeps with his glorious wife, 

— not between Schiller and Goethe, as I believed when I wrote, 

— " The prince has made for himself a rainbow glory, whilst 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 2 I 5 

he stands between the sun and the rushing waterfall." Close 
beside the princely pair, who understood and valued that 
which was great, repose these their immortal friends. With- 
ered laurel garlands lay upon the simple brown coffins, of 
which the whole magnificence consists in the immortal names 
of Goethe and Schiller. In life, the prince and the poet 
walked side by side ; in death, they slumber under the same 
vault. Such a place as this is never effaced from the mind ; 
in such a spot those quiet prayers are offered, which God 
alone hears. 

I remained above eight days in Weimar ; it seemed to me 
as if I had formerly lived in this city ; as if it were a beloved 
home which I must now leave. As I drove out of the city, 
over the bridge and past the mill, and for the last time looked 
back to the city and the castle, a deep melancholy took hold 
on my soul, and it was to me as if a beautiful portion of my 
life here had its close \ I thought that the journey, after I had 
left Weimar, could afford me no more pleasure. How often 
since that time has the carrier-pigeon, and still more fre- 
quently, the mind, flown over to this place ! Sunshine has 
streamed forth from Weimar upon my poet-life. 

From Weimar I went to Leipsic, where a truly poetical 
evening awaited me with Robert Schumann. This great 
composer had a year before surprised me by the honor of 
dedicating to me the music which he had composed to four 
of my songs ; the lady of Dr. Frege, whose singing, so full of 
soul, has pleased and enchanted so many thousands, accom- 
panied Clara Schumann, and the composer and the poet were 
alone the audience : a little festive supper and a mutual inter- 
change of ideas shortened the evening only too much. I met 
with the old, cordial reception at the house of Mr. Brockhaus, 
to which from former visits I had almost accustomed myself. 
The circle of my friends increased in the German cities ; but 
the first heart is still that to which we most gladly turn again. 

I found in Dresden old friends with youthful feelings ; my 
gifted half -countryman Dahl, the Norwegian, w T ho knows how 
upon canvas to make the waterfall rush foaming down, and 
the birch- tree to grow as in the valleys of Norway, and Vogel 
von Vogelstein, who did me the honor of painting my portrait, 



2l6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

which was included in the royal collection of portraits. The 
theatre intendant, Herr von Liittichau, provided me every 
evening with a seat in the manager's box ; and one of the 
noblest ladies, in the first circles of Dresden, the worthy 
Baroness von Decken, received me as a mother would receive 
her son. In this character I was ever afterward received in 
her family and in the amiable circle of her friends. 

How bright and beautiful is the world ! How good are 
human beings ! That it is a pleasure to live becomes ever 
more and more clear to me. 

Beaulieu's younger brother, Edmund, who is an officer in 
the army, came one day from Tharand, where he had spent 
the summer months. I accompanied him to various places, 
spent some happy days among the pleasant scenery of the 
hills, and was received at the same time into various families. 

I visited with the Baroness Decken, for the first time, the 
celebrated and clever painter Retsch, who has published the 
bold outlines of Goethe, Shakespeare, etc. He lives a sort of 
Arcadian life among lowly vineyards on the way to Meissen. 
Every year he makes a present to his wife, on her birthday, 
of a new drawing, and always one of his best ; the collection 
has grown through a course of years to a valuable album, 
which she, if he die before her, is to publish. Among the 
many glorious ideas there, one struck me as peculiar ; the 
" Flight into Egypt." It is night ; every one sleeps in the pic- 
ture, — Mary, Joseph, the flowers, and the shrubs, nay even 
the ass which carries her — all, except the child Jesus, who, 
with open, round countenance, watches over and illumines all. 
I related one of my stories to him, and for this I received a 
lovely drawing, — a beautiful young girl hiding herself behind 
the mask of an old woman ; thus should the eternally youthful 
soul, with its blooming loveliness, peep forth from behind the 
old mask of the fairy tale. Retsch's pictures are rich in 
thought, full of beauty, and a genial spirit. 

I enjoyed the country life of Germany with Major Serre and 
his amiable wife at their splendid residence in Maxen : it is 
not possible for any one to exercise greater hospitality than is 
shown by these two kind-hearted people. A circle of intelli- 
gent, interesting individuals, were here assembled ; I re- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 21 7 

mained among them above eight days, and there became 
acquainted with Kohl the traveller, and the clever authoress, 
the Countess Hahn-Hahn, in whom I discerned a woman by 
disposition and individual character in whom confidence may 
be placed. Her novels and travels at that time were much 
read, and she has since, on account of her conversion to the 
CatholiG faith and her " From Babylon to Jerusalem," been 
again talked about. It is said that her father is famous for his 
unbounded love of the dramatic art, so that at last he was 
almost always absent from his estates going about with his 
company of comedians. She married her cousin, the wealthy 
Count Hahn-Hahn, but a divorce followed, and from that time 
she published poems, novels, and travels. Much is said and 
said in blame about the prominent characteristics of her 
novels, especially their air of superiority, and people have 
accused her of introducing thus her own personality, but 
that is not the impression made upon me. She travelled and 
always lived with the Baron Bystram, a very amiable gentle- 
man. Every one said and believed that they were married, 
and as such they were also received in the very highest so- 
ciety. When I once asked the reason why the marriage was 
kept concealed, they gave as a probable reason, that if she 
married again, she would lose the large annuity she drew 
from her first husband, and without that sum she could not 
get along. As authoress she has been harshly attacked ; her 
position as a writing nun, or, if you will, a Catholic missionary 
woman, has something about it very unnatural and unhealthy, 
but she is truly of a noble nature and a rarely gifted woman. 
It is a pity that the talents she received from God have not 
brought forth here the flowers and fruits which they might 
perhaps have produced under other circumstances. Toward 
me she was considerate and kind. It was through the dark 
glass of my " Only a Fiddler " and my " Wonder Stories " 
that she thought me a poet. 

Where ore is well received, there one gladly lingers. I 
found myself unspeakably happy on this little journey in Ger- 
many, and became convinced that I was there no stranger. 
It was heart and truth to nature which people valued in my 
writings ; and, however excellent and praiseworthy the ex- 



2l8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

terior beauty may be, however imposing the maxims of this 
world's wisdom, still it is heart and nature which have least 
changed by time, and which everybody is best able to under- 
stand. 

I returned home by way of Berlin, where I had not been for 
several years ; but the dearest of my friends there — Chamisso, 
was dead. 

The fair wild swan which flew far o'er the earth, 
And laid its head upon a wild swan's breast, 

was now flown to a more glorious hemisphere ; I saw his 
children, who were now fatherless and motherless. From the 
young who here surround me, I discover that I am grown 
older ; I feel it not in myself. Chamisso's sons, whom I saw 
the last time playing here in the little garden with bare necks, 
came now to meet me with helmet and sword : they were 
officers in the Prussian service. I felt in a moment how the 
years had rolled on, how everything was changed, and how one 
loses so many. 

Yet is it not so hard as people deem, 

To see their souls' beloved from them riven ; 

God has their dear ones, and in death they seem 
To form a bridge which leads them up to heaven. 

I met with the most cordial reception, and have since then 
always met with the same, in the house of the Minister 
Savigny, where I became acquainted with the clever, singularly 
gifted Bettina, and her lovely, spiritual-minded daughters, — 
the youngest of whom had written the poetic fairy tale, " The 
Mud King's Daughter." They introduced me to their mother 
with " Now, what do you say of him ! " Bettina scanned me, 
and passed her hand over my face : " Passable ! " said she, 
and went away, but came back again, affectionate and full of 
originality. One hour's conversation with Bettina, during 
which she was the chief speaker, was so rich and full of 
interest, that I was almost rendered dumb by all this eloquence, 
this fire-work of wit. In the evening when the company broke 
up, she let her carriage return empty while we walked together 
up the street " Unter den Linden ; " the prince of Wurtemberg 
gave her his arrn while I went with the young girls. At 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



219 



Meinhardt's Hotel, where I lived, we stopped, Bettina placed 
herself before the staircase, made a military salute with the 
hand, and said : " Good-night, comrade : sleep well ! * A few 
days after, visiting her in her home, she appeared then in an- 
other way, quite as lively, but not so outward in her jests ; she 
impressed me as profound and kind. The world knows her 
writings, but another talent which she is possessed of is less 
generally known, namely her talent for drawing. Here again 
it is the ideas which astonish us. It was thus, I observed, she 
had treated in a sketch an accident which had occurred just 
before, — a young man being killed by the fumes of wine. 
You saw him descending half-naked into the cellar, round 
which lay the wine casks like monsters : Bacchanals and Bac- 
chantes danced toward him, seized their victim, and destroyed 
him ! I know that Thorwaldsen, to whom she once showed all 
her drawings, was in the highest degree astonished by the 
ideas they contained. 

It does the heart much good when abroad to find a house, 
where, when immediately you enter, eyes flash like festal 
lamps, a house where you can take peeps into a quiet, happy 
domestic life, — such a house is that of Professor Weiss. Yet 
how many new acquaintances which were found, and old 
acquaintances which were renewed, ought I not to mention ! 
I met Cornelius from Rome, Schelling from Munich, my 
countryman I might almost call him — Steffens the Norwegian, 
and once again Tieck, whom I had not seen since my first 
visit to Germany. He was very much altered, yet his gentle, 
wise eyes were the same, the shake of his hand was the same. 
I felt that he loved me and wished me well. I must visit him 
in Potsdam, where he lived in ease and comfort. At dinner 
I became acquainted with his brother the sculptor. 

From Tieck I learnt how kindly the King and Queen of 
Prussia were disposed toward me ; that they had read my 
romance of " Only a Fiddler," and inquired from Tieck about 
me. Meantime their Majesties were absent from Berlin. I 
I had arrived the evening before their departure, when that 
abominable attempt was made upon their lives. 

I returned to Copenhagen by Stettin in stormy weather, full 
of the joy of life, and again saw my dear friends, and in a few 



2 20 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

days set off to Count Moltke's in Funen, there to spend a few 
lovely summer days. I here received a letter from the minister 
Count Rantzau-Breitenburg, who was with the King and Queen 
of Denmark at the watering-place of Fohr. He wrote, saying 
that he had the pleasure of announcing to me the most gracious 
invitation of their Majesties to Fohr. This island, as is well 
known, lies in the North Sea, not far from the coast of Sles- 
wick, in the neighborhood of the interesting Halligs, those 
little islands which Biernatzki described so charmingly in his 
novels. Thus, in a manner wholly unexpected by me, I should 
see scenery of a very peculiar character, even in Denmark. 

The favor of my king and queen made me happy, and I 
rejoiced to be once more in close intimacy with Rantzau. 
Alas, it was for the last time ! 

It was just now five-and-twenty years since I, a poor lad, 
travelled alone and helpless to Copenhagen. Exactly the five- 
and-twentieth anniversary would be celebrated by my being 
with my king and queen, to whom I was faithfully attached, 
and whom I at that very time learned to love with my whole 
soul. Everything that surrounded me, man and nature, re- 
flected themselves imperishably in my soul. I felt myself, as 
it were, conducted to a point from which I could look forth 
more distinctly over the past five-and-twenty years, with all 
the good fortune and happiness which they had evolved for 
me. The reality frequently surpasses the most beautiful 
dream. 

I travelled from Funen to Flensborg, which, lying in its 
great bay, is picturesque with woods and hills, and then im- 
mediately opens out into a solitary heath. Over this I travelled 
in the bright moonlight. The journey across the heath was 
tedious \ the clouds only passed rapidly. We went on monot- 
onously through the deep sand, and monotonous was the wail 
of a bird among the shrubby heath. Presently we reached 
moorlands. Long-continued rain had changed meadows and 
corn-fields into great lakes ; the embankments along which we 
drove were like morasses ; the horses sank deeply into them. 
In many places the light carriage was obliged to be supported 
by the peasants, that it might not fall upon the cottages below 
the embankment. Several hours were consumed over each 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 221 

mile (Danish). At length the North Sea with its islands lay 
before me. The whole coast was an embankment, covered 
for miles with woven straw, against which the waves broke. 
I arrived at high tide. The wind was favorable, and in less 
than an hour I reached Fohr, which, after my difficult journey, 
appeared to me like a real fairy land. 

The largest city, Wyck, in which are the baths, is built ex- 
actly like a Dutch town. The houses are only one story high, 
with sloping roofs and gables turned to the street. The many 
strangers there, and the presence of the court, gave a peculiar 
animation to the principal street. Well-known faces looked 
out from almost every house ; the Danish flag waved, and mu- 
sic was heard. It was as if I had come to a festival ; the sailers 
from the ship carried my luggage to the hotel. Not far from 
the landing-place, near the one-story dwelling where the royal 
couple lived, we saw a large wooden house, at the open win- 
dows of which ladies were moving about ; they looked out and 
shouted : " Welcome, Mr. Andersen ! Welcome." The sail- 
ors bowed low, and took off their hats. I had all along been 
an unknown guest to them, now I became a person of consid- 
eration, because the ladies who saluted me were the young 
Princesses of Augustenburg and their mother, the Duchess. 
I had just taken my place at the table d'hote, and was, as a 
new guest, an object of curiosity, when a royal footman entered 
with an invitation from their Majesties to dinner, which had 
begun, but the king and queen had heard of my arrival, and 
had kept a place at table ready for me. 

Their Majesties had provided lodging for me ; during my 
whole stay there I took breakfast, dinner, and supper with the 
royal family, and Rantzau-Breitenburg. These were beautiful 
and bright poetical days for me, — days that will never come 
back. It is so good to see a noble human nature reveal itself 
where one might expect to find only the king's crown and the 
purple mantle. Few people could be more amiable in private 
life than the then reigning Majesties of Denmark. May God 
bless them, and give them joy, even as they filled my breast 
with happiness and sunshine ! On several evenings I read 
aloud some of my little stories ; " The Nightingale " and 
" The Swineherd " seemed to please the King most, and were 



22 2 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

therefore repeated several evenings. My talent of extemporiz- 
ing was discovered one evening. One of the courtiers recited 
in joke a kind of jingle for the young Princesses of Augusten- 
burg j I stood near by and added in fun, " You do not say 
your verse rightly: I know it better; you must say " — and 
now I made an impromptu. They jested and laughed ; it was 
heard in the next room where the King sat at the card-table ; 
he asked what was the matter, and I repeated my impromptu. 
Now they all tried to extemporize and I helped them along. 
" And have I not made a poem all alone ? " asked General 
Ewald, who was playing at cards with the King ; " will you not 
be so kind as to recite for me one of my best ? " 

"Ewald's poems are well known to the King, and to the 
whole country ! " said I, and turned away, when Queen Caro- 
line Amelia said, " Do you not remember something that 
I have thought and felt ? " I wished to recite some worthy 
lines, and answered, " Certainly, your Majesty : I have written 
something down, and will bring it to-morrow. " 

" You remember it, I am sure ! " she repeated. They urged 
me, and I extemporized the following strophe, which is printed 
among the shorter verses in my poems : — 

PRAYER. 

O God, our Rock when storms do rage, 

Thou art our Sun, our life the shade : 
Strengthen the King in this tempestuous age, 

For Denmark's hope on him is stayed. 
May his hand wreath the flag with flowers, 

And honor Love and every purpose grand ; 
And when Thou judgest this great world of ours, 

Pure as a lily may sea-girt Denmark stand. 

I sailed in their train to the largest of the Halligs, — those 
grassy runes in the ocean, which bear testimony to a sunken 
country. The violence of the sea has changed the main-land 
into islands, has riven these again, and buried men and vil- 
lages. Year after year are new portions rent away, and, in 
half a century's time, there will be nothing here but sea. The 
Halligs are now only low islets covered with a dark turf, on 
which a few flocks graze. When the sea rises these are driven 
into the garrets of the houses, and the waves roll over this lit* 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 223 

tie region, which is miles distant from the shore. Oland, 
which we visited, contains a little town. The houses stand 
closely side by side, as if, in their sore need, they would all 
huddle together. They are all erected upon a platform, and 
have little windows, as in the cabin of a ship. There, in the 
little room, solitary through half the year, sit the wife and her 
daughters spinning. There, however, one always finds a little 
collection of books. I found books in Danish, German, and 
Frisian. The people read and work, and the sea rises round 
the houses, which lie like a wreck in the ocean. Sometimes, 
in the night, a ship, having mistaken the lights, drives on here 
and is stranded. 

In the year 1825, a tempestuous tide washed away men and 
houses. The people sat for days and nights half naked upon 
the roofs, till these gave way \ nor from Fohr nor the main-land 
could help be sent to them. The church-yard is half washed 
away ; coffins and corpses are frequently exposed to view by 
the breakers : it is an appalling sight. And yet the inhab- 
itants of the Halligs are attached to their little home. They 
cannot remain on the main-land, but are driven thence by 
homesickness. 

We found only one man upon the island, and he had only 
lately arisen from a sick-bed. The others were out on long 
voyages. We were received by girls and women. They had 
erected before the church a triumphal arch with flowers which 
they had fetched from Fohr ; but it was so small and low that 
one was obliged to go round it ; nevertheless they showed by 
it their good-will. The Queen was deeply affected by their 
having cut down their only shrub, a rose-bush, to lay over a 
marshy place which she would have to cross. The girls are 
pretty, and are dressed in a half Oriental fashion. The peo- 
ple trace their descent from Greeks. They wear their faces 
half concealed, and beneath the strips of linen which lie upon 
the head is placed a Greek fez, around which the hair is wound 
in plaits. 

On our return, dinner was served on board the royal 
steamer ; and afterward, as we sailed in a glorious sunset 
through this archipelago, the deck of the vessel was changed 
to a dancing room. Young and old danced ; servants flew 



2 24 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

hither and thither with refreshments ; sailors stood upon the 
paddle-boxes and took the soundings, and their deep-toned 
voices might be heard giving the depth of the water. The 
moon rose round and large, and the promontory of Amron 
assumed the appearance of a snow-covered chain of Alps. 

I visited afterward these desolate sand hills : the King went 
to shoot rabbits there. Many years ago a ship was wrecked 
here, on board of which were two rabbits, and from this pair 
Amron is now stored with thousands of their descendants. 
At low tide the sea recedes wholly from between Amron 
and Fohr, and then people drive across from one island to 
another ; but still the time must be well observed and the 
passage accurately known, or else, when the tide comes, he 
who crosses will be inevitably lost. It requires only a few 
minutes, and then where dry land was large ships may sail. 
We saw a whole row of wagons driving from Fohr to Amron. 
Seen upon the white sand and against the blue horizon, they 
seemed to be twice as large as they really were. All around 
were spread out, like a net, the sheets of water, as if they 
held firmly the extent of sand which belonged to the ocean 
and which would be soon overflowed by it. This promontory 
brings to one's memory the mounds of ashes at Vesuvius ; 
for here one sinks at every step, the wiry moor-grass not being 
able to bind together the loose sand. The sun shone burn- 
ingly hot between the white sand hills : it was like a journey 
through the deserts of Africa. 

A peculiar kind of rose and the heath were in flower in the 
valleys between the hills \ in other places there was no vege- 
tation whatever ; nothing but the wet sand on which the 
waves had left their impress ; the sea on its receding had 
inscribed strange hieroglyphics. I gazed from one of the 
highest points over the North Sea ; it was ebb-tide ; the sea 
had retired about a mile ; the vessels lay like dead fishes 
upon the sand, awaiting the returning tide. A few sailors 
had clambered down and moved about on the sandy ground 
like black points. Where the sea itself kept the white level 
sand in movement, a long bank elevated itself, which, during 
the time of high water, is concealed, and upon which occur 
many wrecks. I saw the lofty wooden tower which is here 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



225 



erected, and in which a cask is always kept filled with water, 
and a basket supplied with bread and brandy, that the unfor- 
tunate human beings who are here stranded may be able in 
this place, amid the swelling sea, to preserve life for a few 
days until it is possible to rescue them. 

To return from such a scene as this to a royal table, a 
charming court concert, and a little ball in the bath-saloon, as 
well as to the promenade by moonlight, thronged with guests, 
a little Boulevard, had something in it like a fairy tale, — it 
was a singular contrast. 

As I sat on the above-mentioned five-and-twentieth anni- 
versary, on the 5th of September, at the royal dinner-table, 
the whole of my former life passed in review before my mind. 
I was obliged to summon all my strength to prevent myself 
from bursting into tears. There are moments of thankfulness 
in which, as it were, we feel a desire to press God to our hearts. 
How deeply I felt, at this time, my own nothingness ; how 
all, all, had come from him. Rantzau knew what an interest- 
ing day this was to me. After dinner the King and the Queen 
wished me happiness, and that so — graciously, is a poor 
word — so cordially, so sympathizingly ! The King wished 
me happiness in that which I had endured and won. He 
asked me about my first entrance into the world, and I re- 
lated to him some characteristic incidents. 

In the course of conversation he inquired if I had not some 
certain yearly income : I named the sum to him. 

" That is not much/' said the King. 

" But I do not require much," replied I, " and my writings 
procure me something." 

The King, in the kindest manner, inquired further into my 
circumstances, and closed by saying, — 

" If I can, in any way, be serviceable to your literary labors, 
then come to me." 

In the evening, during the concert, the conversation was 
renewed, and some of those who stood near me reproached 
me for not having made use of my opportunity. 

" The King," said they, " put the very words into your 
mouth." 

But I could not, I would not have done it. u If the King," 
i5 



2 26 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I said, " found that I required something more, he could give 
it to me of his own will." 

And I was not mistaken. In the following year King 
Christian VIII. increased my annual stipend, so that with this 
and that which my writings bring in, I can live honorably and 
free from care. My King gave it to me out of the pure 
good-will of his own heart. King Christian is enlightened, 
clear-sighted, with a mind enlarged by science ; the gracious 
sympathy, therefore, which he has felt in my fate is to me 
doubly cheering and ennobling. 

The 5th of September was to me a festival day : even the 
German visitors at the baths honored me by drinking my 
health in the pump-room. 

So many flattering circumstances, some people argue, may 
easily spoil a man, and make him vain. But, no \ they do not 
spoil him, they make him on the contrary — better ; they 
purify his mind, and he must thereby feel an impulse, a wish, 
to deserve all that he enjoys. At my parting audience with 
the Queen, she gave me a valuable ring as a remembrance of 
our residence at Fohr \ and the King again expressed himself 
full of kindness and noble sympathy. God bless and preserve 
this exalted pair ! 

The Duchess of Augustenburg was at this time also at Fohr 
with her two eldest daughters. I had daily the happiness of 
being with them, and received repeated invitations to take 
Augustenburg on my return. For this purpose I went from 
Fohr to A Is, one of the most beautiful islands in the Baltic. 
That little region resembles a blooming garden ; luxuriant 
corn and clover-fields are inclosed with hedges of hazels and 
wild roses \ the peasants' houses are surrounded by large 
apple orchards, full of fruit. Wood and hill alternate. Now 
we see the ocean, and now the narrow Lesser Belt, which re- 
sembles a river. The castle of Augustenburg is magnificent, 
with its garden full of flowers, extending down to the very 
shores of the serpentine bay. I met with the most cordial 
reception, and found the most amiable family life in the ducal 
circle. I spent fourteen days here, and was present at the 
birthday festivities of the Duchess, which lasted three days ; 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



227 



among these festivities was racing, and the town and the castle 
were filled with people. 

Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer's evening ; 
the heart is filled with peace ; and everything around derives 
a peculiar glory. The full heart says, " It is good to be here ;" 
and this I felt at Augustenburg. 



CHAPTER XII. 

IN' the spring of 1844 I had finished a dramatic tale, " For- 
tune's Flower." The idea of this was, that it is not 
the immortal name of the artist, nor the splendor of a crown 
which can make man happy ; but that happiness is to be found 
where people, satisfied with little, love and are loved again. 
The scene was perfectly Danish, an idyllian, sunbright life, in 
whose clear heaven two dark pictures are reflected as in a 
dream ; the unfortunate Danish poet Ewald, and Prince Buris, 
who is tragically sung of in our heroic ballads. I wished to 
show, in honor of our times, the Middle Ages to have been 
dark and miserable, as they were, but which many poets only 
represent to us in a beautiful light. 

Professor Heiberg, who was appointed censor, declared him- 
self against the reception of my piece. During the last years 
I had met with nothing but hostility from this party : I regarded 
it as personal ill-will, and this was to me still more painful 
than the rejection of the pieces. It was painful for me to be 
placed in a constrained position with regard to a poet whom I 
respected, and toward whom, according to my own conviction, 
I had done everything in order to obtain a friendly relation- 
ship. A further attempt, however, must be made. I wrote 
to Heiberg, expressed myself candidly, and, as I thought, 
cordially, and entreated him to give me explicitly the reasons 
for his rejection of the piece and for his ill-will toward me. 
He immediately paid me a visit, which I, not being at home 
when he called, returned on the following day, and I was re- 
ceived in the most friendly manner. The visit and the con- 
versation belong certainly to the extraordinary, but they occa- 
sioned an explanation, and I hope led to a better understand- 
ing for the future. 

He clearly set before me his views in the rejection of my 
piece. Seen from his point of sight they were unquestionably 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



229 



correct ; but they were not mine, and thus we could not agree. 
He declared decidedly that he cherished no spite against me, 
and that he acknowledged my talent I mentioned his various 
attacks upon me, for example, in the " Intelligencer," and that 
he had denied to me original invention : I imagined, however, 
that I had shown this in my novels ; " But of these," said I, 
"you have read none \ you yourself have told me so." 

" Yes, that is the truth," replied he ; "I have not yet read 
them, but I will do so." 

" Since then," continued I, " you have turned me and my 
"Bazaar" to ridicule in your poem called "Denmark," and 
spoken about my fanaticism for the beautiful Dardanelles ; 
and yet I have, precisely in that book, described the Darda- 
nelles as not beautiful ; it is the Bosphorus which I thought 
beautiful ; you seem not to be aware of that ; perhaps you 
have not read ' The Bazaar ' either ? " 

" Was it the Bosphorus ? " said he, with his own peculiar 
smile ; " yes, I had quite forgotten that, and, you see, people 
do not remember it either ; the object in this case was only to 
give you a stab." 

This confession sounded so natural, so like him, that I was 
obliged to smile. I looked into his clever eyes, thought how 
many beautiful things he had written, and I could not be 
angry with him. The conversation became more lively, more 
free, and he said many kind things to me ; for example, he 
esteemed my stories very highly, and entreated me frequently 
to visit him. I have become more and more acquainted with 
his poetical temperament, and I fancy that he too will under- 
stand mine. We are very dissimilar, but we both strive after 
the same object. Before we separated he conducted me to 
his little observatory ; now his dearest world. He seems 
now to live for poetry and now for philosophy, and — for 
which I fancy he is least of all calculated — for astronomy. 
Recent years, in which I have acquired so many blessings 
have brought me also the appreciation of that gifted genius. 

But to follow the succession of time : the dramatic tale was 
brought on the stage, and in the course of the season was 
performed seven times and was then laid to rest, at least 
under that theatrical management. I have often asked my- 



230 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



self the question, Is it because of special weakness in my 
dramatic works or because I am the author of them, that 
they are judged so harshly and are attacked on every occa- 
sion? I could discover this only by writing an anonymous 
work and let that take its course ; but could I keep my se- 
cret? No, all agreed that I could not, and this opinion 
worked to my advantage. During a short visit at Nysoe I 
wrote " The King Dreams ; " nobody except Collin knew that 
I was the author. I heard that Heiberg, who just at that time 
was using me very sharply in the " Intelligencer," interested 
himself very much for the anonymous piece, and, if I am not 
mistaken, he put it on the stage. I must however add that 
afterward he gave it a beautiful and generous critique in the 
u Intelligencer," and that too after he had caught the notion 
that it might be written by me, — which almost all doubted. 

A new experiment procured for me still greater pleasure 
and fun, because of the situation I fell into and the judgments 
I heard. At the very time I was having so much trouble in 
getting my " Fortune's Flower " represented, I wrote and 
sent in " The New Lying-in Room." * The little comedy was 
at that time performed most exquisitely. Madame Heiberg 
played with life and humor the part of Christina ; she gave an 
air of freshness and charm to it all, and the piece met, as is 
well known, with great success. Collin was initiated into the 
secret, as also H. C. Orsted, to whom I read the piece at my 
own home, and he was pleased with the praise that the little 
work received. Nobody anticipated that it came from me. 
Returning home the evening after the first representation of 
the piece, one of our young, clever critics came to my rooms ; 
he had been at the theatre, and expressed now the great pleas- 
ure he had found in the little comedy. I was rather embar- 
rassed and feared I might betray myself by words or aspect, so 
I said immediately to him : " I know its author ! " — " Who is 
it ? " asked he. " It is you ! " said I, " you are in such agitation, 
and much of what you say betrays you ! Do not see anybody 

1 There is a comedy by Holberg called "The Lying-in Room," founded, 
as this also, on the custom in Denmark of a woman receiving the congrat- 
ulation of her friends shortly after the birth of a child, — a custom which 
has fallen into disuse from its manifest imprudence. — Ed. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 23 I 

else this evening and speak as you have been speaking to me, 
for you will be discovered ! " He blushed and was quite as- 
tonished, laid his hand upon his heart and assured me sol- 
emnly that he was not the author. " I know what I know ! " 
said I laughingly, and begged him to excuse my leaving him. 
It was not possible for me to hold in longer, and so I was 
compelled to speak as I did, and he did not suspect any de- 
ceit. 

I went one day to the director of the theatre, the Privy Coun- 
selor Adler, to hear of my " Fortune's Flower." 

" Well," said he, " that is a work with considerable poetry 
in it, but not of the kind that we can make use of. If you 
could only write a piece like " The New Lying-in Room ! " 
That is an excellent piece, but does not lie within reach of 
your talent \ you are a lyrist, and not in possession of that 
man's humor ! " 

" I am sorry to say that I am not ! " I answered, and now I 
also praised " The New Lying-in Room." For more than a 
year the little piece was played with great success, and nobody 
knew its author's name ; they guessed Hostrup, and that was 
no damage to me ; afterward one or another guessed me, but 
it was not believed. I have seen how those who have named 
me have been set right, and one of the arguments used was : 
" Andersen could not have kept still after such a success ! " — - 
" No, that would have been impossible," said I, and I made 
a silent vow not to reveal myself as its author, for several 
years, when it should have no more interest for the public, 
and I have kept my word. Only last year I revealed it, by 
inserting the piece among my " Collected Writings," as also 
the piece " The King Dreams." Several characters in the 
novel " O. T.," as also some in " Only a Fiddler," e. g. Peter 
Vieck, might have put them on the scent that I -was the author. 
I had thought that people might have found some humor in 
my stories, but it was not so ; it was only found in my " New 
Lying-in Room." 

It was this characteristic of my writing which especially 
pleased H. C. Orsted, who was the first that spoke of it and 
bade me believe that I really had humor. He perceived it in 
some of my earlier works, and in several traits of my char- 



232 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

acter. When my first collection of poems appeared in 1830, 
of which several had been printed separately, I tried to find a 
motto for the whole collection, but I could not find anything 
striking, so I made one myself. 

" Forgotten poems are new ! " — Jean Paul. 

And I had the fun afterward to see other authors, men of 
erudition, quoting the same motto of Jean Paul ; I know from 
what source they had it, and Orsted also. 

There was a time when I suffered so very bitterly from a 
too severe and almost personal criticism, that I was often at 
the point of giving up, but then there came moments where 
humor, if I dare call it so, raised me from the sadness and 
misery into which I had sunk ; I saw clearly my own weak- 
ness and wants, but also what was foolish and absurd in the 
insipid rebukes and learned gabble of the critics. 

Once in such a moment I wrote a critique upon H. C. An- 
dersen as an author ; it was very sharp, and finished by recom- 
mending study and gratitude toward those who had educated 
him. I took the conceit with me one day to H. C. Orsted's, 
where a company was gathered for dinner. I told them that J 
had brought with me a copy of a shameless and harsh criticism, 
and read it aloud. They could not imagine why I should 
copy such a thing, but they also condemned it as harsh. 

" It is really so," said Orsted, " they are severe against An- 
dersen, but yet it seems to me that there is something in it, 
some arguments which are really striking and give us an 
insight into you ! " 

"Yes," I answered, "for it is from myself! " and now there 
was surprise, and laughter and joking ■ most of the company 
wondered that I could have been able to write such a thing 
myself. 

" He is a true humorist ! " said Orsted, and that was the 
first time that I discovered for myself that I was in possession 
of such a gift. 

As people grow older, however much they may be tossed 
about in the world, some one place must be the true home ; 
even the bird of passage has one fixed spot to which it hastens : 
mine was and is the house of my friend Collin. Treated as a 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



233 



son, almost grown up with the children, I have become a 
member of the family \ a more heartfelt connection, a better 
home have I never known : a link broke in this chain, and 
precisely in the hour of bereavement, did I feel how firmly I 
have been engrafted here, so that I was regarded as one of 
the children. 

If I were to give the picture of the mistress of a family who 
wholly loses her own individual /in her husband and children, 
I must name the wife of Collin ; with the sympathy of a moth- 
er, she also followed me in sorrow and in gladness. In the 
latter years of her life she became very deaf, and beside this 
she had the misfortune of being nearly blind. An operation 
was performed on her sight, which succeeded so well, that in 
the course of the winter she was able to read a letter, and this 
was a cause of grateful joy to her. She longed in an extraor- 
dinary manner for the first green of spring, and this she saw 
in her little garden. 

I parted from her one Sunday evening in health and joy ; in 
the night I was awoke ; a servant brought me a letter. Collin 
wrote, " My wife is very ill ; the children are all assembled 
here ! " I understood it. and hastened thither. She slept 
quietly and without pain ; it was the sleep of the just \ it was 
death which was approaching so kindly and calmly. On the 
third day she yet lay in that peaceful slumber : then her 
countenance grew pale — and she was dead ! 

Thou did'st but close thine eyes to gather in 
The large amount of all thy spiritual bliss ; 
We saw thy slumbers like a little child's. 
O Death ! thou art all brightness and not shadow. 

Never had I imagined that the departure from this world 
could be so painless, so blessed. A devotion arose in my 
soul 1 a conviction of God and eternity, which this moment 
elevated to an epoch in my life. It was the first death-bed at 
which I had been present since my childhood. Children, and 
children's children were assembled. In such moments all is 
holy around us. Her soul was love ; she went to love and to 
God! 

At the end of July the monument of King Frederick VI. 



234 THE ST0RY OF MY LIFE. 

was to be uncovered at Skanderborg, in the middle of Jutland. 
I had, by solicitation, written the cantata for the festival, to 
which Hartmann had furnished the music, and this was to be 
sung by Danish students. I had been invited to the festival, 
which thus was to form the object of my summer excursion. 

Skanderborg lies in one of the most beautiful districts of 
Denmark. Charming hills rise covered with vast beech woods, 
and a large inland lake of a pleasing form extends among 
them. On the outside of the city, close by the church, which' 
is built upon the ruins of an old castle, now stands the 
monument, a work of Thorwaldsen's. The most beautiful 
moment to me at this festival was in the evening, after the un- 
veiling of the monument ; torches were lighted around it, and 
threw their unsteady flame over the lake ; within the woods 
blazed thousands of lights, and music for the dance resounded 
from the tents. Round about upon the hills, between the 
woods, and high above them, bonfires were lighted at one and 
the same moment, which burned in the night like red stars. 
There was spread over lake and land a pure, a summer fra- 
grance which is peculiar to the North, in its beautiful summer 
nights. The shadows of those who passed between the 
monument and the church, glided gigantically along its red 
walls, as if they were spirits who were taking part in the 
festival. 

A royal steamship was ordered to bring home the students, 
and before our departure the citizens of Aarhuus got up a ball 
for us. We arrived in a long procession of carriages at the 
city, but earlier than they had expected, and as we were to 
have a very elegant reception we were advised to wait a little. 
So we stopped in the hot sun a long time out of the city, all 
for the honor of it, and when we entered the city we were 
drawn up in rows on the market-place ; the good citizens each 
took a student to entertain. I stood among the students, 
and several citizens, one after another, came up to me, 
bowed, asked my name, and when I told it them they asked, 
" Are you the poet Andersen ? " I said " Yes ! " They bowed 
again and went away ; all went away ; not one of them would 
have the poet, or perhaps they wished me so good a host, the 
very best one, that at last I did not get any at all. I stood 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 235 

forsaken and alone, like a negro at a slave-market whom 
nobody will buy. I alone was obliged to find a hotel in the 
good city of Aarhuus. 

We went homeward over the Kattegat with song and laugh- 
ter. The Kullen lifted its black rocks, the Danish shores 
stood fresh and green with their beech woods j it was a jour- 
ney for the musician and the poet. I returned home to liter- 
ary activity. In this year my novel of "The Improvisatore " 
was translated into English by the well-known authoress Mary 
Howitt, and was received by her countrymen with great ap- 
plause. " O. T." and " Only a Fiddler " soon followed, and 
met with, as it seemed, the same reception. After that ap- 
peared a Dutch, and lastly a Russian translation of " The Im- 
provisatore." That which I should never have ventured to 
dream of was accomplished ; my writings seem to come forth 
under a lucky star \ they have flown over all lands. There is 
something elevating, but at the same time something terrific, 
in seeing one's thoughts spread so far, and among so many 
people ; it is, indeed, almost a fearful thing to belong to so 
many. The noble, the good in us becomes a blessing ; but 
the bad, one's errors, shoots forth also, and involuntarily the 
thought forces itself from us : God ! let me never write down 
a word of which I shall not be able to give an account to Thee. 
A peculiar feeling, a mixture of joy and anxiety } fills my heart 
every time my good genius conveys my fictions to a foreign 
people. 

Travelling operates like an invigorating bath to the mind, — 
like a Medea-draught which always makes one young again. 
I feel once more an impulse for it — not in order to seek 
material, as a critic fancied and said, in speaking of my " Ba- 
zaar ; " there exists a treasury of material in my own inner 
self, and this life is too short to mature this young existence ; 
but there needs refreshment of spirit in order to convey it 
vigorously and maturely to paper, and travelling is to me, as I 
have said, this invigorating bath, from which I return as it 
were younger and stronger. 

By prudent economy, and the proceeds of my writings, I 
was in a condition to undertake several journeys during the 
last year. That which for me is the most sun-bright, is the one 



236 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

in which these pages were written. Esteem, perhaps over 
estimation, but especially kindness, in short, happiness and 
pleasure, have flowed toward me in abundant measure. 

I wished to visit Italy for the third time, there to spend a 
summer, that I might become acquainted with the South in its 
warm season, and probably return thence by Spain and France. 
At the end of October, 1845, I left Copenhagen. Formerly 
I had thought when I set out on a journey : God ! what wilt 
Thou permit to happen to me on this journey? This time my 
thoughts were : God ! what will happen to my friends at home 
during this long time ? And I felt a real anxiety. In one 
year the hearse may drive up to the door many times, and 
whose name may be read upon the coffin ! The proverb says, 
when one suddenly feels a cold shudder : "Now death passes 
over my grave." The shudder is still colder when the thoughts 
pass over the graves of our best friends. 

I spent a few days at Count Moltke's, at Glorup ; strolling 
players were acting some of my dramatic works at one of the 
nearest provincial towns. I did not see them ; country life 
firmly withheld me. There is something in the late autumn 
poetically beautiful ; when the leaf is fallen from the tree, and 
the sun shines still upon the green grass, and the bird twitters, 
one may often fancy that it is a spring-day ; thus certainly 
also has the old man moments in his autumn in which his 
heart dreams of spring. 

I passed only one day in Odense. I feel myself there 
more of a stranger than in the great cities of Germany. As 
a child I was solitary, and had therefore no youthful friend ; 
most of the families whom I knew, have died out ; a new gen- 
eration passes along the streets ; and the streets even are 
altered. Later burials have concealed the miserable graves 
of my parents. Everything is changed. I took one of my 
childhood's rambles to the Marian-heights, which had belonged 
to the Iversen family ; but this family is dispersed ; unknown 
faces looked out from the windows. How many youthful 
thoughts have been here exchanged ! 

One of the young girls, Henriette Hanck, who at that time 
sat quietly there with beaming eyes and listened to my first 
poem when I came here in the summer time as a scholar 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 237 

from Slagelse, sits now far quieter in noisy Copenhagen, and 
has thence sent out her first writings into the world \ the 
romances, " Aunt Anna ,J and u An Author's Daughter/'' both 
were published in Germany. Her German publisher thought 
that some introductory words from me might be useful to 
them ; and I, the stranger, but perhaps the too hospitably en- 
tertained, have introduced the works of this clever girl into 
Germany. I visited her childhood home ; was by the Odense 
Canal when the first little circle paid me homage and gave 
me joy. But all was strange there, I myself a stranger ; nei- 
ther was I to see her more, for when, the year after, I came 
home from my travels, I received the news of her death, in 
July, 1846. She was an affectionate daughter to her parents, 
and was, besides this, possessed of a deeply poetical mind. 
In her I have lost a true friend from the years of childhood, 
one who had felt an interest and a sisterly regard for me, 
both in my good and my evil days. 

The ducal family of Augustenburg was now at Castle Gra- 
vensteen : they were informed of my arrival, and all the favor 
and the kindness which were shown to me on the former occa- 
sion at Augustenburg, were here renewed in rich abundance. 
I remained here fourteen days, and it was as if these were an 
announcement of all the happiness which should meet me 
when I arrived in Germany. The country around here is of 
the most picturesque description • vast woods, cultivated up- 
lands in perpetual variety, with the winding shore of the bay 
and the many quiet inland lakes. Even the floating mists of 
autumn lent to the landscape a picturesqueness, a something 
strange to the islander. Everything here is on a larger scale 
than on the island. Beautiful was it without, glorious was it 
within. I wrote here a new little story, — " The Girl with 
the Matches;" the only thing which I wrote upon this jour- 
ney. Receiving the invitation to come often to Gravensteen 
and Augustenburg, I left, with a grateful heart, a place where 
I had spent such beautiful and such happy days. 

Now no longer the traveller goes at a snail's pace through 
the deep sand over the heath : the railroad conveys him in a 
few hours to Altona and Hamburg. The circle of my friends 
there is increased within the last years. The greater part of 



238 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

my time I spent with my oldest friends, Count Hoik, and the 
resident Minister Bille, and with Zeise, the excellent translator 
of my stories. Otto Speckter, who is full of genius, surprised 
me by his bold, glorious drawings for my stories ; he had 
made a whole collection of them, six only of which were 
known to me. The same natural freshness which shows 
itself in every one of his works, and makes them all little 
works of art, exhibits itself in his whole character. He 
appears to possess a patriarchal family, an affectionate old 
father, and gifted sisters, who love him with their whole souls. 
I wished one evening to go to the theatre : it was scarcely a 
quarter of an hour before the commencement of the opera : 
Speckter accompanied me, and on our way we came up to an 
elegant house. 

" We must first go in here, dear friend," said he ; "a wealthy 
family lives here, friends of mine, and friends of your stories ; 
the children will be happy." 

" But the opera," said I. 

" Only for two minutes," returned he ; and drew me into the 
house, mentioned my name, and the circle of children collected 
around me. 

" And now tell us a tale," said he ; " only one." 

I told one, and then hastened away to the theatre. 

"That was an extraordinary visit," said I. 

" An excellent one ; one entirely out of the common way ! " 
said he exultingly. " Only think : the children are full of 
Andersen and his stories ; he suddenly makes his appearance 
amongst them, tells one of them himself, and then is gone ! 
vanished ! That is of itself like a fairy tale to the children, 
that will remain vividly in their remembrance." 

I myself was amused by it. 

In Oldenburg my own little room, home-like and comfort- 
able, was awaiting me. Hofrath von Eisendecher and his 
well-informed lady, whom, among all my foreign friends, I 
may consider as my most sympathizing, expected me. I had 
promised to remain with them a fortnight, but I stayed much 
longer. A house where the best and the most intellectual 
people of a city meet, is an agreeable place of residence, and 
such a one had I here. A deal of social intercourse prevailed 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



239 



in the little city; and the theatre, in which certainly either 
opera or ballet was given, is one of the most excellent in 
Germany. The ability of Gall, the director, is sufficiently 
known, and unquestionably the nomination of the poet Mosen 
has a great and good influence. I have to thank him for 
enabling me to see one of the classic pieces of Germany, 
" Nathan the Wise," the principal part in which was played by 
Kaiser, who is as remarkable for his deeply studied and excel- 
lent tragic acting as for his readings. 

Mosen, who somewhat resembles Alexandre Dumas, with 
his half African countenance and brown, sparkling eyes, 
although he was suffering in body, was full of life and soul, 
and we soon understood one another. A trait of his little son 
affected me. He had listened to me with great devotion, as I 
read one of my stories ; and when, on the last day I was there, 
I took leave, the mother said that he must give me his hand, 
adding that probably a long time must pass before he would 
see me again, the boy burst into tears. In the evening, when 
Mosen came into the theatre, he said to me, " My little Erick 
has two tin soldiers ; one of them he has given me for you, 
that you may take him with you on your journey. " 

The tin soldier has faithfully accompanied me ; he is a 
Turk : probably some day he may relate his travels. 

Mosen wrote in the dedication of his " John of Austria," 
the following lines to me : — 

" Once a little bird flew over 

From the North Sea's dreary strand ; 
Singing, flew unto me over, 

Singing Marchen through the land. 
Farewell ! yet again bring hither 
Thy warm heart and song together." 

Here I again met with Mayer, who has described Naples 
and the Neapolitans so charmingly. My little stories interested 
him so much that he had written a little treatise on them for 
Germany. Kapellmeister Pott and my countryman JerndorrT 
belong to my earlier friends. I made every day new acquaint- 
ance, because all houses were open to me through the family 
with whom I was staying. Even the Grand Duke was so 
generous as to have me invited to a concert at the palace the 



24O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

day after my arrival, and later I had the honor of being asked 
to dinner. I received in this foreign court, especially, many 
unlooked-for favors. At the Eisendeckers and at the house 
of the parents of my friend Beaulieu, — the Privy-Councilor 
Beaulieu, at Oldenburg, — I heard several times my little 
stories read in German. 

I can read Danish very well, as it ought to be read, and I 
can give to it perfectly the expression which ought to be given 
in reading : there is in the Danish language a power which 
cannot be transfused into a translation ; the Danish language 
is peculiarly excellent for this species of fiction. The stories 
have a something strange to me in German ; it is difficult for 
me in reading it to put my Danish soul into it ; my pronunci- 
ation of the German also is feeble, and with particular words 
I must, as it were, use an effort to bring them out ; and yet 
people everywhere in Germany have had great interest in 
hearing me read them aloud. I can very well believe that the 
foreign pronunciation in the reading of these tales may be 
easily permitted, because this foreign manner approaches, in 
this instance, to the child-like ; it gives a natural coloring to 
the reading. I saw everywhere that the most distinguished 
men and women of the most highly cultivated minds listened 
to me with interest ; people entreated me to read, and I did 
so willingly. I read for the first time my stories in a foreign 
tongue, and at a foreign court, before the Grand Duke of 
Oldenburg and a little select circle. 

The winter soon came on • the meadows, which lay under 
water, and which formed large lakes around the city, were 
already covered with thick ice ; the skaters flew over it, and 
I yet remained in Oldenburg among my hospitable friends. 
Days and evenings slid rapidly away ; Christmas approached, 
and this season I wished to spend in Berlin. But what are 
distances in our days ? — the steam-carriage goes from Han- 
over to Berlin in one day! I must away from the beloved 
ones, from children and old people, who were near, as it 
were, to my heart. 

I was astonished in the highest degree, on taking leave of 
the Grand Duke, to receive from him, as a mark of his favor 
and as a keepsake, a valuable ring. I shall always preserve 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



2 4 I 



it, like every other remembrance of this country, where I have 
found and where I possess true friends. 

When I was in Berlin on the former occasion, I was invited, 
as the author of " The Improvisatore," to the Italian Society, 
into which only those who have visited Italy can be admitted. 
Here I saw Rauch for the first time, who, with his white hair 
and his powerful, manly figure, is not unlike Thorwaldsen. 
Nobody introduced me to him, and I did not venture to 
present myself, and therefore walked alone about his studio, 
like the other strangers. Afterward I became personally ac- 
quainted with him at the house of the Prussian Ambassador 
in Copenhagen. I now hastened to him. 

He was in the highest degree captivated by my little stories, 
pressed me to his breast, and expressed the highest praise, 
which was honestly meant. Such a momentary estimation 
or over-estimation from a man of genius erases many a dark 
shadow from the mind. I received from Rauch my first 
welcome in Berlin : he told me what a large circle of friends 
I had in the capital of Prussia. I must acknowledge that it 
was so. They were of the noblest in mind as well as the 
first in rank, in art, and in science — Alexander von Hum- 
boldt, Prince Radziwil, Savigny, and many others never to be 
forgotten. 

I had already, on the former occasion, visited the brothers 
Grimm, but I had not at that time made much progress with 
the acquaintance. I had not brought any letters of introduc- 
tion to them with me, because people had told me, and I 
myself believed it, that if I were known by anybody in Berlin, 
it must be the brothers Grimm. I therefore sought out their 
residence. The servant-maid asked me with which of the 
brothers I wished to speak. 

" With the one who has written the most," said I, because 
I did not know, at that time, which of them had most inter- 
ested himself in the " Marchen." 

" Jacob is the most learned," said the maid-servant. 

" Well, then, take me to him." 

I entered the room, and Jacob Grimm, with his knowing 
and strongly marked countenance, stood before me. 

"I come to you," said I, "without letters of introduction, 
16 



242 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

because I hope that my name is not wholly unknown to 
you." 

" Who are you ? " asked he. 

I told him ; and Jacob Grimm said, in a half-embarrassed 
voice, " I do not remember to have heard this name : what 
have you written ? " 

It was now my turn to be embarrassed in a high degree ; 
but I now mentioned my little stories. 

" I do not know them, " said he ; " but mention to me 
some other of your writings, because I certainly must have 
heard them spoken of." 

I named the titles of several ; but he shook his head. I 
felt myself quite unlucky. 

" But what must you think of me," said I, " that I come to 
you as a total stranger, and enumerate myself what I have 
written : You must know me ! There has been published in 
Denmark a collection of the " Marchen " of all nations, which 
is dedicated to you, and in it there is at least one story of 
mine." 

" No," said he good-humoredly, but as much embarrassed as 
myself ; " I have not read even that, but it delights me to 
make your acquaintance. Allow me to conduct you to my 
brother Wilhelm ? " 

" No, I thank you," said I, only wishing now to get away ; 
I had fared badly enough with one brother. I pressed his 
hand, and hurried from the house. 

That same month Jacob Grimm went to Copenhagen ; 
immediately on his arrival, and while yet in his travelling 
dress, did the amiable, kind man hasten up to me. He now 
knew me, and he came to me with cordiality. I was just 
then standing and packing my clothes in a trunk for a journey 
to the country ; I had only a few minutes' time : by this 
means my reception of him was just as laconic as had been 
his of me in Berlin. 

Now, however, we met in Berlin as old acquaintance. Jacob 
Grimm is one of those characters whom one must love and at- 
tach one's self to. 

One evening, as I was reading one of my little stories at the 
Countess Bismark-Bohlen's, there was in the little circle one 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 243 

person in particular who listened with evident fellowship of 
feeling, and who expressed himself in a peculiar and sensible 
manner on the subject This was Jacob's brother, Wilhelm 
Grimm. 

" I should have known you very well, if you had come to 
me," said he, " the last time you were here." 

I saw these two highly gifted and amiable brothers almost 
daily. The circles into which I was invited, seemed also to be 
theirs \ and it was my desire and pleasure that they should lis- 
ten to my little stories, that they should participate in them, — 
they whose names will be always spoken as long as the Ger- 
man " Volks Marchen " are read. 

The fact of my not being known to Jacob Grimm on my 
first visit to Berlin had so disconcerted me, that when any one 
asked me whether I had been well received in this city, I 
shook my head doubtfully and said, " But Grimm did not 
know me." 

I was told that Tieck was ill — could see no one ; I there- 
fore only sent in my card. Some days afterward I met at a 
friend's house, where Rauch's birthday was being celebrated, 
Tieck, the sculptor, who told me that his brother had lately 
waited two hours for me at dinner. I went to him, and dis- 
covered that he had sent me an invitation, which, however, 
had been taken to a wrong inn. A fresh invitation was given, 
and I passed some delightfully cheerful hours with Raumer, 
the historian, and with the widow and daughter of Steffens. 
There is a music in Tieck's voice, a spirituality in his intelli- 
gent eyes, which age cannot lessen, but, on the contrary, must 
increase. " The Elves," perhaps the most beautiful story 
which has been conceived in our time, would alone be suffi- 
cient, had Tieck written nothing else, to make his name im- 
mortal. As the author of " Marchen," I bow myself before 
him, the elder and the master, and who was the first German 
poet who many years before pressed me to his breast, as if it 
were to consecrate me to walk in the same path with himself. 

The old friends had all to be visited ; but the number of 
new ones grew with each day. One invitation followed an- 
other. It required considerable physical power to support so 
much good-will. I remained in Berlin about three weeks, and 



244 THE ST0R Y 0F MY LIFE. 

the time seemed to pass more rapidly with each succeeding 
day. I was, as it were, overcome by kindness. I, at length, 
had no other prospect for repose than to seat myself in a rail- 
way carriage, and fly away out of the country. 

And yet amid these social festivities, with all the amiable 
zeal and interest that then was felt for me, I had one disen- 
gaged evening, — one evening on which I suddenly felt solitude 
in its most oppressive form, — Christmas Eve, that very evening 
of all others on which I would most willingly witness some- 
thing festal, willingly stand beside a Christmas-tree, gladden- 
ing myself with the joy of children, and seeing the parents 
joyfully become children again. Every one of the many fam- 
ilies in which I in truth felt that I was received as a relation, 
had fancied, as I afterward discovered, that I must be invited 
out ; but I sat quite alone in my room at the inn, and thought 
on home. I seated myself at the open window, and gazed up 
to the starry heavens, which was the Christmas-tree that was 
lighted for me. 

" Father in heaven ! " I prayed, as the children do, " what 
dost Thou give to me ? " 

When the friends heard of my solitary Christmas night, 
there were on the following evening many Christmas-trees 
lighted ; and on the last evening in the year there was planted 
for me alone a little tree with its lights and its beautiful pres- 
ents — and that was by Jenny Lind. The whole company 
consisted of herself, her attendant, and me ; we three children 
from the North were together on Sylvester Eve, and I was the 
child for whom the Christmas-tree was lighted. She rejoiced 
with the feeling of a sister in my good fortune in Berlin ; and 
I felt almost pride in the sympathy of such a pure, noble, and 
womanly being. Everywhere her praise resounded, not merely 
as a singer, but also as a woman ; the two combined awoke a 
real enthusiasm for her. 

It does one good, both in mind and heart, to see that which 
is glorious understood and beloved. In one little anecdote 
contributing to her triumph I was myself made the confidant. 

One morning as I looked out of my window " Unter den 
Linden" I saw a man under one of the trees, half hidden, and 
shabbily dressed, who took a comb out of his pocket, smoothed 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 245 

his hair, set his neckerchief straight, and brushed his coat 
with his hand \ I understood that bashful poverty which feels 
depressed by its shabby dress. A moment after this, there 
was a knock at my door, and this same man entered. It was 

W , the poet of nature, who is only a poor tailor, but who 

has a truly poetical mind. Rellstab and others in Berlin have 
mentioned him with honor \ there is something healthy in his 
poems, among which several of a sincerely religious character 
may be found. He had heard that I was in Berlin, and wished 
now to visit me. We sat together on the sofa and conversed : 
there was such an amiable contentedness, such an unspoiled 
and good tone of mind, about him, that I was sorry not to be 
rich in order that I might do something for him. I was 
ashamed of offering him the little that I could give ; in any 
case I wished to put it in as agreeable a form as I could. I 
asked him whether I might invite him to hear Jenny Lind. 

" I have already heard her," said he smiling • " I had, it is 
true, no money to buy a ticket \ but I went to the leader of 
the supernumeraries, and asked whether I might not act as a 
supernumerary for one evening in ' Norma/ I was accepted, 
and habited as a Roman soldier, with a long sword by my side, 
and thus got to the theatre, where I could hear her better than 
anybody else, for I stood close to her. Ah, how she sung, 
how she played ! I could not help crying ; but they were 
angry at that : the leader forbade, and would not let me again 
make my appearance, because no one must weep on the 
stage." 

Jenny Lind introduced me to Madame Birch-Pfeiffer. " She 
taught me German," said she \ " she is as good as a mother 
to me ! You must make her acquaintance ! " I was very 
glad to do so. We went through the street in a drosky. The 
world-renowned Jenny Lind in a drosky ! somebody will 
perhaps say, as it was said in Copenhagen, when she was seen 
once riding in such a carriage with an older lady friend : " It 
is not respectable for Jenny Lind to ride in a 'drosky ; things 
must be in keeping ! " What strange notions some people 
have of what is proper ! Thorwaldsen once said at Nysoe, 
when I was going to the city by the omnibus, " I'll go with 
you ! " and the people exclaimed : " Thorwaldsen in an omni- 



246 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

bus ! that is not seemly ! " — " But Andersen is also going with 
me ! " said he, innocently. " That is quite another thing," said 
I to him. Thorwaldsen in an omnibus would be scandalous, 
and so it was with Jenny Lind in a drosky. She rode, how- 
ever, in Berlin within such a one, which we engaged in the 
street, and so we reached Madame Birch-Pfeiffer. 

I had heard of the ability of this artist as an actress ; I knew 
her talent a la Scribe for presenting in dramatic form what has 
had a home in romance, and I knew with what harshness 
criticism had almost always treated the highly gifted lady. 
At first sight it seemed to me as if this had given her a little 
smile of bitterness ; I perceived it in her salutation : " I have 
not yet read your books, but I know that you are criticised 
very favorably : that I cannot say of myself ! " 

" He is like a good brother to me ! " said Jenny Lind, and 
laid my hand in hers. Madame Birch-PfeifTer bid me a kind 
welcome ; she was all life and humor. The next time I called 
on her she was reading my " Improvisatore," and I felt that I 
had one more friend among women. 

With the exception of the theatre, I had very little time to 
visit collections of any kind or institutions of art. The able 
and amiable Olfers, however, the Director of the Museum, 
enabled me to pay a rapid but extremely interesting visit to 
that institution. Olfers himself was my conductor ; we delayed 
our steps only for the most interesting objects, and there are 
here not a few of these ; his remarks threw light into my mind, 
— for this therefore I am infinitely obliged to him. 

I had the happiness of visiting the Princess of Prussia 
many times ; the wing of the castle in which she resided was 
so comfortable, and yet like a fairy palace. The blooming 
winter-garden, where the fountain splashed among the moss at 
the foot of the statue, was close beside the room in which the 
kind-hearted children smiled with their soft blue eyes. One 
forenoon I read to her several of my little stories, and her 
noble husband listened kindly ; Prince Piickler-Muskau also 
was present. On taking leave she honored me with a richly 
bound album, in which, beneath the picture of the palace, she 
wrote her name. I shall guard this volume as a treasure of 
the soul ; it is not the gift which has a value only, but also the 
manner in which it is given. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



247 



A few days after my arrival in Berlin, I had the honor to be 
invited to the royal table. As I was better acquainted with 
Humboldt than any one there, and as it was he who had par- 
ticularly interested himself about me, I took my place at his 
side. Not only on account of his high intellectual character, 
and his amiable and polite behavior, but also from his infinite 
kindness toward me, during the whole of my residence in 
Berlin, is he become unchangeably dear to me. 

The King received me most graciously, and said that during 
his stay in Copenhagen he had inquired after me, and had 
heard that I was travelling. He expressed a great interest in 
my novel of " Only a Fiddler ; " her Majesty the Queen also 
showed herself graciously and kindly disposed toward me. I 
had afterward the happiness of being invited to spend an 
evening at the palace at Potsdam ; an evening which is full 
of rich remembrance and never to be forgotten ! Besides the 
ladies and gentlemen in waiting, Humboldt and myself were 
only invited. A seat was assigned to me at the table of their 
Majesties, exactly the place, said the Queen, where Oehlen- 
schlager had sat and read his tragedy of " Dina." I read four 
little stories, " The Fir-Tree," " The Ugly Duckling," " The 
Top and the Ball," and " The Swineherd." The King listened 
with great interest, and expressed himself most wittily on the 
subject. He said how beautiful he thought the natural scenery 
of Denmark, and how excellently he had seen one of Hol- 
berg's comedies performed. 

It was deliciously pleasant in the royal apartment, — gen- 
tle eyes were gazing at me, and I felt that they all wished 
me well. When at night I was alone in my chamber, my 
thoughts were so occupied with this evening, and my mind in 
such a state of excitement, that I could not sleep. Everything 
seemed to me like a fairy tale. Through the whole night the 
chimes sounded in the tower, and the aerial music mingled it- 
self with my thoughts. 

I received still one proof more of the favor and kindness 
of the King of Prussia toward me, on the evening before my 
departure from the city. The order of the Red Eagle, of the 
third class, was conferred upon me. Such a mark of honor 
delights certainly every one who receives it. I confess can- 



248 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

didly that I felt myself honored in a high degree. I discerned 
in it an evident token of the kindness of the noble, enlight- 
ened King toward me : my heart was filled with gratitude. I 
received this mark of honor exactly on the birthday of my 
benefactor Collin, the 6th of January ; this day has now a 
twofold festal significance for me. May God fill with glad- 
ness the mind of the royal donor who wished to give me 
pleasure ! 

The last evening was spent in a warm-hearted circle, for 
the greater part, of young people. My health was drunk • a 
poem, " Der Marchenkonig," declaimed. It was not until late 
in the night that I reached home, that I might set off early in 
the morning by railroad. In Weimar I was again to meet 
Jenny Lind. 

I have here given in part a proof of the favor and kindness 
which was shown to me in Berlin : I feel like some one who 
has received a considerable sum for a certain object from a 
large assembly, and now would give an account thereof. I 
might still add many other names, as well from the learned 
world, as Theodor Miigge, Geibel, Haring, etc., as from 
the social circle \ the reckoning is too large. God give me 
strength for that which I now have to perform, after I have, 
as an earnest of good-will, received such a richly abundant 
sum. 

After a journey of a day and night I was once more in 
Weimar, with the noble hereditary Grand Duke. What a 
cordial reception ! A heart rich in goodness, and a mind 
full of noble endeavors, live in this young prince. I have no 
words for the infinite favor which, during my residence here, 
I received daily from the family of the Grand Duke, but my 
whole heart is full of devotion. At the court festival, as well 
as in the familiar family circle, I had many evidences of the 
esteem in which I was held. Beaulieu cared for me with the 
tenderness of a brother. It was to me a month-long Sabbath 
festival. Never shall I forget the quiet evenings spent with 
him, when friend spoke freely to friend. 

My old friends were also unchanged ; the wise and able 
Scholl, as well as Schober, joined them also. The intellect- 
ual, venerable Madame von Schwindler, an intimate friend 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 249 

of Jean Paul in his younger days, received me with sympathy 
and maternal kindness ; she told me that I put her in mind 
of that great poet ! She told me much of him that I had 
not heard before. 

Jean Paul or Frederick Richter, which was his true name, 
was so poor when he was young that in order to get money to 
buy paper to write his first work, he was obliged to write 
copies of " The Village Gazette " for the peasants in the 
village where he lived. She told me that the poet Gleim was 
the first who noticed him, and wrote to her about the gifted 
young man, whom he had invited to his house, and to whom 
he had sent five hundred thalers. Madame von Schwindler 
had lived here at Weimar in the days of its glory ; she had 
been a visitor at the court in the evening along with Wieland, 
Herder, and Musaeus ; of them and of Goethe and Schiller 
she had much to relate. She presented me with one of Jean 
Paul's letters to her. 

Jenny Lind came to Weimar ; I heard her at the court 
concerts and at the theatre ; I visited with her the places 
which are become sacred through Goethe and Schiller : we 
stood together beside their coffins, where Chancellor von 
Muller led us. The Austrian poet, Rollet, who met us here 
for the first time, wrote on this subject a sweet poem, which 
will serve me as a visible remembrance of this hour and this 
place. People lay lovely flowers in their books, and as such, 
I lay in here this verse of his : — 

" Weimar, 29th January -, 1846. 
"Marchen rose, which hast so often 

Charmed me with thy fragrant breath ; 
Where the prince, the poets slumber, 
Thou hast wreathed the hall of death. 

"And with thee beside each coffin, 
In the death-hushed chamber pale, 
I beheld a grief-enchanted, 
Sweetly dreaming nightingale. 

u I rejoiced amid the stillness ; 

Gladness through my bosom past, 
That the gloomy poets' coffins 
Such a magic crowned at last. 



25O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" And thy rose's summer fragrance 
Floated round that chamber pale, 
With the gentle melancholy 
Of the grief-hushed nightingale." 

It was in the evening circle of the intellectual Froriep that 
I met, for the first time, with Auerbach, who then chanced 
to be staying in Weimar. His " Village Tales " interested 
me in the highest degree ; I regard them as the most poetical, 
most healthy, and joyous production of the young German 
literature. He himself made the same agreeable impression 
upon me ; there is something so frank and straightforward, 
and yet so sagacious, in his whole appearance, I might almost 
say that he looks himself like a village tale, healthy to the 
core, body and soul, and his eyes beaming with honesty. We 
soon became friends — and I hope forever. 

My stay in Weimar was prolonged ; it became ever more 
difficult to tear myself away. The Grand Duke's birthday 
occurred at this time, and after attending all the festivities to 
which I was invited, I departed. I would and must be in 
Rome at Easter. Once more in the early morning, I saw the 
hereditary Grand Duke, and, with a heart full of emotion, 
bade him farewell. Never, in presence of the world, will I 
forget the high position which his birth gives him, but I may 
say, as the very poorest subject may say of a prince, I love 
him as one who is dearest to my heart. God give him joy 
and bless him in his noble endeavors ! A generous heart 
beats beneath the princely star. 

Beaulieu accompanied me to. Jena. Here a hospitable 
home awaited me, filled with beautiful memories from the time 
of Goethe, — the house of the publisher Frommann. His 
kind, warm-hearted sister had shown me much sympathy in 
Berlin ; the brother was not here less kind. 

The Holsteiner Michelsen, who has a professorship at Jena, 
assembled a number of friends one evening, and in a graceful 
and cordial toast in my honor, expressed his sense of the im- 
portance of Danish literature, and the healthy and natural 
spirit which flourished in it. 

In Michelsen's house I also became acquainted with Pro- 
fessor Hase, who, one evening having heard some of my little 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



251 



stories, seemed filled with great kindness toward me. What 
he wrote in this moment of interest on an album leaf expresses 
this sentiment : — 

" Schelling — not he who now lives in Berlin, but he who 
lives an immortal hero in the world of mind — once said : 
1 Nature is the visible spirit.' This spirit, this unseen nature, 
last evening was again rendered visible to me through your 
little tales. If on the one hand you penetrate deeply into the 
mysteries of nature ; know and understand the language of 
birds, and what are the feelings of a fir-tree or a daisy, so that 
each seems to be there on its own account, and we and our 
children sympathize with them in their joys and sorrows ; yet, 
on the other hand, all is but the image of mind \ and the 
human heart, in its infinity, trembles and throbs throughout. 
May this fountain in the poet's heart, which God has lent you, 
still for a time pour forth this refreshingly, and may these 
stories in the memories of the Germanic nations become the 
legends of the people ! " That object, for which as a writer 
of poetical fictions, I must strive after, is contained in these 
last lines. 

It is also to Hase and the gifted improvisatore, Professor 
Wolff of Jena, to whom I am most indebted for the appearance 
of a uniform German edition of my writings. 

This was all arranged on my arrival at Leipsic : several 
hours of business were added to my traveller's mode of life. 
The city of book-selling presented me with her bouquet, a 
sum of money ; but she presented me with even more. I met 
again with Brockhaus, and passed happy hours with Mendels- 
sohn, that glorious man of genius. I heard him play again 
and again • it seemed to me that his eyes, full of soul, looked 
into the very depths of my being. Few men have more the 
stamp of the inward fire than he. A gentle, friendly wife, and 
beautiful children, make his rich, well-appointed house, blessed 
and pleasant. When he rallied me about the stork, and its 
frequent appearance in my writings, there was something so 
childlike and amiable revealed in this great artist ! 

I also met again my excellent countryman Gade, whose com- 
positions have been so well received in Germany. I brought 
him the text for a new opera which I had written, and which 



252 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

I hope to see brought out on the German stage. Gade had 
written the music to my drama of " Agnete and the Merman," 
compositions which were very successful. Auerbach, whom I 
again found here, introduced me to "-many agreeable circles. 
I met with the composer Kalliwoda, and with Kiihne, whose 
charming little son immediately won my heart. 

On my arrival at Dresden I instantly hastened to my moth- 
erly friend, the Baroness von Decken. That was a joyous, 
hearty welcome ! One equally cordial I met with from Dahl. 
I saw once more my Roman friend, the poet with word and 
color, Reineck, and met the kind-hearted Bendemann. Pro- 
fessor Grahl painted me. I missed, however, one among my 
olden friends, the poet Brunnow. With life and cordiality he 
received me the last time in his room, where stood lovely 
flowers ; now these grew over his grave. It awakens a pecul- 
iar feeling, thus for once to meet on the journey of life, to 
understand and love each other, and then to part — until the 
journey for both is ended. 

I spent, to me a highly interesting evening, with the royal 
family, who received me with extraordinary favor. Here also 
the most happy domestic life appeared to reign — a number 
of amiable children, all belonging to Prince Johann, were 
present. The least of the Princesses, a little girl, who knew 
that I had written the history of the " Fir-tree," began very 
confidentially with, — " Last Christmas we also had a Fir- 
tree, and it stood here in this room ! " Afterward, when she 
was led out before the other children, and had bade her 
parents and the King and Queen good-night, she turned 
round at the half-closed door, and nodding to me in a friendly 
and familiar manner, said I was her Fairy-tale Prince. 

My story of " Holger Danske " led the conversation to the 
rich stores of legends which the North possesses. I related 
several, and explained the peculiar spirit of the fine scenery of 
Denmark. Neither in this royal palace did I feel the weight 
of ceremony ; soft, gentle eyes shone upon me. My last 
morning in Dresden was spent with the Minister von Kon- 
neritz, where I equally met with the most friendly reception. 

The sun shone warm : it was Spring who was celebrating 
her arrival, as I rolled out of the dear city. Thought as- 



THE STORY OF MY L.FE. 



^53 



sembled in one company all the many who had rendered my 
visits so rich and happy : it was spring around me. and spring 
in my heart. 

In Prague I had no acquaintance. But a letter from Dr. 
Cams- in Dresden opened to me the hospitable house of Count 
Thun. The Archduke Stephan received me also in the most 
gracious manner ; I found in him a young man full of intellect 
and heart. I visited Hradschin and Wallenstein's palace, but 
these splendid places had all been supplanted by — the Jews' 
quarter ! It was horrid ; it swarmed with women, old men, 
and children, laughing, crying, chaffering, and at every step 
the street became narrower \ the ancient synagogue, in imitation 
of the Temple of Jerusalem, is placed as if squeezed between 
the houses. In the lapse of time a layer of earth had gathered 
on its wall. I was obliged to step down before I could enter, 
and here were ceiling, windows, and walls all begrimed with 
smoke ; an odious smell of onion and other bad vapors 
reached me, so that I was compelled to go out into the open 
place, the burying-ground. Tombstones with Hebrew in- 
scriptions were standing and lying in confusion under a grove 
of elder-trees, — stunted, unhealthy looking, almost sapless. 
Cobwebs were hanging like rays of mourning-crape among 
the dead, black graves. Besides it was a very interesting 
point of time when I left Prague. The military, who had been 
stationed there a number of years, were hastening to the rail- 
way, to leave for Poland, where disturbances had broken out. 
The whole city seemed in movement to take leave of its 
military friends ; it was difficult to get through the streets 
which led to the railway. Many thousand soldiers were to be 
accommodated ; at length the train was set in motion. All 
around the whole hill-side was covered with people ; it looked 
like the richest Turkey carpet woven of men, women, and 
children, all pressed together, head to head, and waving hats 
and handkerchiefs. Such a mass of human beings I never 
saw before, or at least, never at one moment surveyed them : 
such a spectacle could not be painted. 

We travelled the whole night through wide Bohemia : at 
every town stood groups of people ; it was as though all the 
inhabitants had assembled themselves. Their brown faces, 



254 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

their ragged clothes, the light of their torches, their, to me, 
unintelligible language, gave to the whole a stamp of singular- 
ity. We flew through tunnel and over viaduct ; the windows 
rattled, the signal whistle sounded, the steam horses snorted ; 
I laid back my head at last in the carriage, and fell asleep 
under the protection of the god Morpheus. 

At Olmiitz, where we had fresh carriages, a voice spoke my 
name — it was Walter Goethe ! We had travelled together 
the whole night without knowing it. In Vienna we met often. 
Noble powers, true genuis, live in Goethe's grandsons,, in the 
composer as well as in the poet ; but it is as if the greatness 
of their grandfather pressed upon them. Liszt was in Vienna, 
and invited me to his concert, in which otherwise it would 
have been impossible to find a place. I again heard his im- 
provising of Robert. I again heard him, like a spirit of the 
storm, play with the chords : he is an enchanter of sounds who 
fills the imagination with astonishment. Ernst also was here ; 
when I visited him he seized the violin, and this sang in tears 
the secret of a human heart. 

I saw the amiable Grillparzer again, and was frequently 
with the kindly Castelli, who just at this time had been made 
by the King of Denmark Knight of the Dannebrog Order. 
He was full of joy at this, and begged me to tell my country- 
men that every Dane should receive a hearty welcome from 
him. Some future summer he invited me to visit his grand 
country-seat. There is something in Castelli so open and 
honorable, mingled with such good-natured humor, that one 
must like him : he appears to me the picture of a thorough 
Viennese. Under his portrait, which he gave me, he wrote 
the following little improvised verse in the style so peculiarly 
his own : — 

" This portrait shall ever with loving eyes greet thee, 
From far shall recall the smile of thy friend ; 
For thou, dearest Dane, 'tis a pleasure to meet thee, 
Thou art one to be loved and esteemed to the end." 

Castelli introduced me to Seidl and Bauernfeld. At the 
Danish ambassador's, Baron von Lowenstern, I met Zedlitz. 
Most of the shining stars of Austrian literature I saw glide 
past me, as people on a railway see church towers ; you can 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 255 

still say you have seen them ; and still retaining the simile of 
the stars, I can say, that in the Concordia Society I saw the 
entire galaxy. Here was a host of young, growing intellects, 
and here were men of importance. At the house of Count 
Szechenyi, who hospitably invited me, I saw his brother from 
Pesth, whose noble activity in Hungary is known. This short 
meeting I account one of the most interesting events of my 
stay in Vienna ; the man revealed himself in all his individu- 
ality, and his eye said that you must feel confidence in him. 

At my departure from Dresden her Majesty the Queen of 
Saxony had asked me whether I had introductions to any one 
at the court of Vienna, and when I told her that I had not, 
the Queen was so gracious as to write a letter to her sister, 
the Archduchess Sophia of Austria. Her imperial Highness 
summoned me one evening, and received me in the most 
gracious manner. The dowager Empress, the widow of the 
Emperor Francis I., was present, and full of kindness and 
friendship toward me ; also Prince Wasa, and the hereditary 
Archduchess of Hesse-Darmstadt. The remembrance of this 
evening will always remain dear and interesting to me. I 
read several of my little stories aloud. When I wrote them, 
.1 little thought that I should some day read them aloud in the 
imperial palace. 

Before my departure I had still another visit to make, and 
this was to the intellectual authoress, Frau von Weissenthurn. 
She had just left a bed of sickness and was still suffering, 
but wished to see me. As though she were already standing 
on the threshold of the realm of shades, she pressed my hand 
and said this was the last time we should ever see each other. 
With a soft motherly gaze she looked at me, and at parting 
her penetrating eye followed me to the door. 

With railway and diligence my route now led toward Tri- 
este. With steam the long train of carriages flies along the 
narrow rocky way, following all the windings of the river. 
One wonders that with all these abrupt turnings one is not 
dashed against the rock, or flung down into the roaring 
stream, and is glad when the journey is happily accomplished. 
But in the slow diligence one wishes its more rapid journey 
might recommence, and praise the powers of the age. 



256 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

% 
At length Trieste and the Adriatic Sea lay before us ; the 
Italian language sounded in our ears, but yet for me it was 
not Italy, the land of my desire. Meanwhile I was only a 

S stranger here for a few hours ; our Danish Consul, as well as 

the consuls of Prussia and Oldenburg, to whom I was recom- 
mended, received me in the best possible manner. Several 
interesting acquaintances were made, especially with the Counts 
O'Donnell and Waldstein, the latter for me as a Dane having 
a peculiar interest, as being the descendant of that unfor- 
tunate Corfitz Ulfeldt and the daughter of Christian IV., 
Eleanore, the noblest of all Danish women. Their portraits 
hung in his room, and Danish memorials of that period were 
shown me. It was the first time I had ever seen Eleanore 
Ulfeldt's portrait, and the melancholy smile on her lips seemed 
to say, " Sing, poet, and free him for whom it was my happi- 
ness to live and suffer, from the chains which a hard age has 
him cast upon ! " Before Oehlenschlager thought of writing 
his " Dina," which treats of an episode in Ulfeldt's life, I was 
at work on this subject, and had collected considerable his- 
torical material : I wished to bring it on the stage, but it was 
then feared this would not be allowed ; that the time lay too 
near ours, and that King Frederick VI. would not give permis- 
sion to have any of his ancestors, later than Christian IV., 
brought on the stage. Count Rantzau-Breitenburg assured 
me that it was so. Christian VIII. who was then prince, 
encouraged me, however, to elaborate that poetical work, 
" it could at any rate be read ! " he said, but I gave it up. 

When King Christian VIII. ascended the throne, all these 
reasons fell to the ground, and one day Oehlenschlager said 
to me: " Now I have written a ' Dina/ which you also once 
have thought of." His drama had a plan and character 
quite different from mine. One may understand thus how 
everything connected with Ulfeldt and his descendants inter- 
ested me. Count Waldstein told me that there were still in 
his father's castle in Hungary or Bohemia, I do not remember 
exactly where,, many letters and papers concerning Corfitz 
and Eleanore. Another descendant of Ulfeldt I made ac- 
quaintance with in Sweden, namely Count Beck-Friis ; the 
picture of Christian IV., the head of the family, hangs in 



THE STOR Y OF MY LIFE. 



257 



the dining hall. Now they besought me to relate what I knew 
of that family and of all existing memories at Copenhagen, 
from " the blue tower" to the monument in Ulfeldt's Square. 
That monument has just been removed by order of the King. 

On the Adriatic Sea I was carried in thought back to 
Ulfeldt's time and the Danish islands. This meeting with 
Count Waldstein and his ancestors' portrait brought me back 
to my poet's world, and I almost forgot that the following day 
I could be in the middle of Italy. In beautiful mild weather 
I went with the steamboat to Ancona. 

It was a quiet starlight night, too beautiful to be spent in 
sleep. In the early morning the coast of Italy lay before us, 
the beautiful blue mountains with glittering snow. The sun 
shone warmly, the grass and the trees were splendidly 
green. Last evening in Trieste, now in Ancona, in a city of 
the Papal States, — it was almost like enchantment! Italy 
in all its picturesque splendor lay once more before me ; 
spring had ripened all the fruit trees so that they had burst 
forth into blossom \ every blade of grass in the field was filled 
with sunshine, the elm-trees stood like caryatides enwreathed 
with vines, which shot forth green leaves, and above the 
luxuriance of foliage rose the wavelike blue mountains with 
their snow covering. In company with Count Paar from 
Vienna, the most excellent travelling companion I have ever 
had, and a young nobleman from Hungary, I now travelled 
on with a vetturino for five days. 

The Bohemians like all other travellers when they come to 
Italy for the first time, expect to be attacked by banditti, as 
I also in my earlier days feared, and carry weapons and 
pistols with them. "They are loaded with double shots!" 
said he. " But where are they ? " I asked, as I could not dis- 
cover any. " I have them in my portmanteau ! " And that 
was placed under my seat. As I did not like that, and could 
also assure them that the robbers would hardly wait until I 
got up, got the portmanteau opened, and the murderous weap- 
ons out, they were taken out and fastened over our heads 
in the carriage, and placed before us in all the' inns on our 
way. We visited Loretto, saw the pious people kneeling in 
the holy house, which angels had carried through the air ■ we 
17 



258 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

passed through solitary, romantic countries among the Apen- 
nines. We did not meet with other robbers than some in 
chains on a cart escorted by soldiers. Solitary, and more 
picturesque than habitable inns among the Apennines were 
our night's quarters. At length the Campagna, with its 
thought-awakening desolation, lay before us. 

It was the 31st of March, 1846, when I again saw Rome, 
and for the third time in my life I reached this city of the 
world. I felt so happy, so penetrated with thankfulness and 
joy; how much more God had given me than a thousand 
others — nay, than to many thousands ! And even in this 
very feeling there is a blessing — where joy is very great, as 
in the deepest grief, there is only God on whom one can lean ! 
The first impression was — I can find no other word for it — 
adoration. When day unrolled for me my beloved Rome, I 
felt what I cannot express more briefly or better than I did 
in a letter to a friend : " I am growing here into the very 
ruins ; I live with the petrified gods, and the roses are always 
blooming, and the church bells ringing — and yet Rome is 
not the Rome it was thirteen years ago when I first was here. 
It is as if everything were modernized, the ruins even, grass 
and bushes are cleared away. Everything is made so neat ; 
the very life of the people seems to have retired ; I no longer 
hear the tambourines in the streets, no longer see the young 
girls dancing their Saltarella : even in the Campagna intelli- 
gence has entered by invisible railroads \ the peasant no 
longer believes as he used to do. At the Easter festival I 
saw great numbers of the people from the Campagna standing 
before St. Peter's whilst the Pope distributed his blessing, 
just as though they had been Protestant strangers. This was 
repulsive to my feelings ; I felt an impulse to kneel before the 
invisible saint. When I was here thirteen years ago, all knelt ; 
now reason had conquered faith. Ten years later, when the 
railways will have brought cities still nearer to each other, 
Rome will be yet more changed. But in all that happens, 
everything is for the best ; one always must love Rome ; it 
is like a story book : one is always discovering new wonders, 
and one lives in imagination and reality." 

The first time I travelled to Italy I had no eyes for sculp- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



259 



ture ; in Paris the rich pictures drew me away from the stat- 
ues ; for the first time when I came to Florence and stood 
before the "Venus de Medici/' I felt, as Thorwaldsen ex- 
pressed it, " the snow melt away from my eyes ; " and a new 
world of art rose before me. And now at my third sojourn in 
Rome, after repeated wanderings through the Vatican, I prize 
the statues far higher than the paintings. But at what other 
places as at Rome, and to some degree in Naples, does this 
art step forth so grandly into life ! One is carried away by it, 
one learns to admire nature in the work of art ; the beauty of 
form becomes spiritual. 

Among the many clever and beautiful things which I saw 
exhibited in the studios of the young artists, two pieces of 
sculpture were what most deeply impressed themselves on my 
memory ; and these were in the studio of my countryman 
Jerichau. I saw his group of " Hercules and Hebe,'' which 
had been spoken of with such enthusiasm in the " Allgemeine 
Zeitung " and other German papers, and which, through its 
antique repose, and its glorious beauty, powerfully seized upon 
me. My imagination was filled by it, and yet I must place 
Jerichau's later group, the "Fighting Hunter," still higher. 
It is formed after the model, as though it had sprung from 
nature. There lies in it a truth, a beauty, and a grandeur 
which I am convinced will make his name resound through 
many lands ! 

I have known him from the time when he was almost a boy. 
We were both of us born on the same island : he is from the 
little town of Assens. We met in Copenhagen. No one, not 
even he himself, knew what lay within him • and half in jest, 
half in earnest, he spoke of the combat with himself whether 
he should go to America and become a savage, or to Rome 
and become an artist — painter or sculptor : that he did not 
yet know. His pencil was meanwhile thrown away : he mod- 
eled in clay, and my bust was the first which he made. He 
received no travelling stipendium from the Academy. As far 
as I know, it was a noble-minded woman, an artist herself, 
unprovided with means, who, from the interest she felt for the 
spark of genius she observed in him, assisted him so far that 
he reached Italy by means of a trading vessel. In the begin- 



260 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ning he worked in Thorwaldsen's atelier. During the labor 
of several years, he has doubtless experienced the struggles 
of genius and the galling fetters of want ; but now the star of 
fortune shines upon him. When I came to Rome, I found 
him physically suffering and melancholy. He was unable to 
bear the warm summers of Italy ; and many people said he 
could not recover unless he visited the North, breathed the 
cooler air, and took sea-baths. His praises resounded through 
the papers, glorious works stood in his atelier : but man does 
not live on heavenly bread alone. There came one day a 
Russian prince, I believe, and he gave a commission for the 
" Hunter." Two other commissions followed on the same day. 
Jerichau came full of rejoicing and told this to me. A few 
days after he travelled with his wife, a highly gifted painter, 
to Denmark, from whence, strengthened in body and soul, he 
returned, with the winter, to Rome, where the strokes of his 
chisel will resound, so that, I hope, the world will hear them. 
My heart will beat joyfully with them ! 

I also met in Rome, Kolberg, another Danish sculptor, 
until now only known in Denmark, but there very highly 
thought of, a scholar of Thorwaldsen's and a favorite of that 
great master. He honored me by making my bust. I also 
sat once more with the kindly Kiichler, and saw the forms 
fresh as nature spread themselves over the canvas. 

I sat once again with the Roman people in the amusing 
puppet theatre, and heard the children's merriment. Among 
the German artists, as well as among the Swedes and my own 
countrymen, I met with a hearty reception. My birthday 
was joyfully celebrated. Frau von Goethe, who was in Rome, 
and who chanced to be living in the very house where I 
brought my " Improvisatore "into the world, and made him 
spend his first years of childhood, sent me from thence a 
large, true Roman bouquet, a fragrant mosaic. The Swedish 
painter, Sodermark, proposed my health to the company 
whom the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians had invited me to 
meet. From my friends I received some pretty pictures and 
friendly keepsakes. 

Constantly in motion, always striving to employ every mo- 
ment and to see everything, I felt myself at last very much 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 26 1 

affected by the unceasing sirocco. The Roman air did not 
agree with me, and I hastened, therefore, as soon as I had 
seen the illumination of the dome and the girandola, immedi- 
ately after the Easter festival, through Terracina to Naples. 
Count Paar travelled with me. We entered St. Lucia : the 
sea lay before us \ Vesuvius blazed. Those were glorious 
evenings ! moonlight nights ! It was as if the heavens had 
elevated themselves above and the stars were withdrawn. 
What effect of light ! In the North the moon scatters silver 
over the water : here it was gold. The revolving lanterns of 
the light-house now exhibited their dazzling light, now were 
totally extinguished. The torches of the fishing-boats threw 
their obelisk-formed blaze along the surface of the water, or 
else the boat concealed them like a black shadow, below 
which the surface of the water was illuminated. One fancied 
one could see to the bottom, where fishes and plants were in 
motion. Along the street itself thousands of lights were burn- 
ing in the shops of the dealers in fruit and fish. Now came 
a troop of children with lights, and went in procession to the 
Church of St. Lucia. Many fell down with their lights ; but 
above the whole stood, like the hero of this great drama of 
light, Vesuvius with his blood-red flame and his illumined 
cloud of smoke. 

The heat of the sun became more and more oppressive, the 
sirocco blew dry and warm. As an inhabitant of the North, 
I thought that heat would do me good ; I did not know its 
power, and when the Neapolitans wisely kept themselves in- 
doors or crept along in the shadows of the houses, I ran 
boldly about to Molo, to Musaeo Bourbonico ; but one day, 
in the midst of Largo di Castello, it was as if my breathing 
would suddenly stop, as if the sun was sinking down into my 
eyes ; its rays went through my head and back, and I fainted 
away. When I recovered I found I had been carried into 
a coffee-house ; they had laid ice upon my head ; I was lame in 
all my limbs, and from that time I did not venture out in the 
day-time ; the least exertion affected me, and the only exercise 
I could bear was to take a drive in a carriage up to Camaldali, 
and to spend the evenings on the large, airy terraces at the 
sea-shore with the Prussian ambassador, the Baron Brock - 
h aii^en. 



262 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I visited the islands of Capri and Ischia once more. My 
compatriot, the danseuse Miss Fjeldsted, visited the baths 
there, and had improved so much that in the evenings she 
danced the Saltarello with the young girls under the orange- 
trees, and had so enchanted the young folks that they gave 
her a serenade. Ischia has never had that charm for me that 
it has for many travellers ; the sun was too hot, and every one 
advised me to go to Sorrento, Tasso's city, where the air ap- 
peared lighter. 

In company with an English family whose acquaintance I 
had made at Rome, I hired a couple of rooms out of Sorrento 
in Camello, near the sea, which rolled its waves into the 
caverns beneath our little garden. The heat of the sun com- 
pelled me to stay in the whole day, and here I wrote " Das 
Marchen meines Lebens." 1 In Rome, by the bay of Naples, 
and amid the Pyrenees, I wrote and completed those sketches 
which were to serve as a commentary to my writings in the 
German edition. They were sent sheet by sheet in letters to 
Copenhagen, where one of my clever friends had free scope 
with the manuscript, and, after perusing it, sent it to my pub- 
lisher at Leipsic, and not a sheet was lost on the way. 

My stay in Camello was very agreeable, and the view from 
my windows and the loggia, unsurpassed. Vesuvius and the 
Mediterranean lay before me, but there was no other walk 
than the long, narrow way between the high walls, which 
surround and almost hide the stony gardens. One would 
have to be a lizard to endure that burning heat, where not a 
breath of air stirred, and I should have been obliged to get a 
pair of stilts before I could look over the walls. I moved, 
therefore, into the city of Sorrento, where the composers, the 
Swede Josephson and the Dutch Verhulst, both friends of 
mine, lived and kept their summer cottage. The very day I 
arrived here a great festival was celebrated : three young girls, 
daughters of a rich merchant, took the veil. The church was 
adorned in the most fantastical way, an orchestra performed 
music, and real opera buffo music too. We heard from " The 
Barber of Seville " the whole aria of Don Bazile about slander, 
and meanwhile the cannons were thundering outside. The 
1 The German brief, of which this book is a fuller narrative. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 263 

excess of variety destroyed the pious feeling I had brought 
with me ! an old, queer officer, who with great difficulty tried 
to kneel down, did not help to make it more solemn for me \ 
only when the mass was read by one of the young girls, and 
her voice sounded tenderly and with a thrill in it, a more holy 
feeling again took possession of me. 

At Josephson's there was, beside his personal amiableness, 
something else that drew us nearer together, namely, our 
common friendship for Jenny Lind. She had been his god- 
mother when he was converted from the Jewish to the Chris- 
tian faith, and she had always since shown him true sympathy 
and friendship. When travelling abroad he had called upon 
her at Berlin, and had daily visited her in her home ; he was 
there called a " Swedish theological student,'' which they soon 
changed to a " village parson." The rumor ran that he was 
betrothed to the Swedish Nightingale ; everybody has read 
and heard that story ! We often had our laugh at the genius 
and inventive faculty which Rumor possesses. 

The well-known festival of the Madonna dell' Arco called 
me again to Naples, where I took up my quarters at a hotel 
in the middle of the city, near Toledo Street, and found an 
excellent host and hostess. I had already resided here, but 
only in the winter. I had now to see Naples in its sum- 
mer heat and with all its wild tumult, but in what degree I 
had never imagined. The sun shone down with its burning 
heat into the narrow streets, in at the balcony door. It was 
necessary to shut up every place : not a breath of air stirred. 
Every little corner, every spot in the street on which a shadow 
fell, was crowded with working handicraftsmen, who chattered 
loudly and merrily ; the carriages rolled past ; the drivers 
screamed ; the tumult of the people roared like a sea in the 
other streets ; the church bells sounded every minute \ my 
opposite neighbor, God knows who he was, played the musical 
scale from morning till evening. It was enough to make one 
lose one's senses ! 

The sirocco blew its boiling-hot breath and I was perfectly 
overcome. There was not another room to be had at St. 
Lucia, and the sea-bathing seemed rather to weaken than to 
invigorate me. I went therefore again into the country \ but 



264 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

the sun burned there with the same beams ; yet though the 
air there was more elastic, for all that it was to me like the 
poisoned mantle of Hercules, which, as it were, drew out of 
me strength and spirit. I, who had fancied that I must be 
a true child of the sun, so firmly did my heart always cling 
to the South, was forced to acknowledge that the snow of the 
North was in my body, that the snow melted, and that I was 
more and more miserable. 

Most strangers felt as I myself did in this, as the Neapoli- 
tans themselves said, unusually hot summer ; the greater 
number went away. I also would have done the same, but I 
was obliged to wait several days for a letter of credit ; it was 
more than three weeks since it was due. 

" There is no letter for you ! " -always said the mighty 
Rothschild, to 'whom my letters were addressed ; and one 
day, tired of my continual asking, he gave a vigorous pull at 
the drawer where all the letters for foreigners were kept -who 
had letters of credit upon the banker. " Here is no letter ! " 
but as he pushed the drawer back ^gain a little angrily, a 
letter fell on the floor, which was sealed with wax and had 
become glued on the hind-part of the drawer. The letter was 
for me and contained a letter of credit \ more than a month 
had it lain here, and would have remained there longer had 
he not pulled out the drawer so violently ; now then I could 
get away ! Yet there was a deal for me to see in Naples ; many 
houses were open to me. I tried whether my will were not 
stronger than the Neapolitan heat, but I fell into such a ner- 
vous state in consequence, that till the time of my departure 
I was obliged to lie quietly in my hot room, where the night 
brought no coolness. From dawn to midnight roared the 
noise of bells, the cry of the people, the trampling of horses 
on the stone pavement, and the before-mentioned practicer of 
the scale — it was like being on the rack ; and this caused 
me to give up my journey to Spain, especially as I was 
assured, for my consolation, that I should find it just as warm 
there as here. The physician said that, at this season of the 
year, I could not sustain the journey. 

I took a berth in the steamboat Castor for Marseilles \ the 
vessel was full to overflowing with passengers ; the whole 






THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 265 

quarter-deck, even the best place, was occupied by travelling 
carriages \ under one of these I had my bed laid ; many peo- 
ple followed my example, and the quarter-deck was soon 
covered with mattresses and carpets. One of the first of the 
English nobility, the Marquis of Douglas, married to the 
Princess of Baden, was on board with his wife. We con- 
versed together ; he learned that I was a Dane but did not 
know my name. We talked of Italy and of what had been 
written about that country ; I named " Corinna," by Madame 
de Stael-Holstein ; he interrupted me by saying : — 

"You have a countryman who has still better described Italy 
for us ! " 

" The Danes do not think so ! " I answered. 

He spoke in high praise of " The Improvisatore " and its 
author. " It is a pity," said I, " that Andersen had been 
there so short a time when he wrote his book ! " 

" He has lived there many years ! " answered the Marquis. 

" O no," I assured him, " only ten months ; I know it ex- 
actly ! " 

" I should like to know that man," said he. 

"That is very easy ! " continued I, " he is here on board/' 
and now I told him whom I was. 

It blew strongly ; the wind increased, and in the second and 
third night raged to a perfect storm ; the ship rolled from side 
to side like a cask in the open sea ; the waves dashed against 
the ship's side, and lifted up their broad heads above the bul- 
warks as if they would look in upon us. It was as if the car- 
riages under which we lay would crush us to pieces, or else 
would be washed away by the sea. There was a lamentation, 
but I lay quiet, looked up at the driving clouds, and thought 
upon God and my beloved. 

When at length we reached Genoa most of the passengers 
went on land : I should have been willing enough to have 
followed their example, that I might go by Milan to Switzer- 
land, but my letter of credit was drawn upon Marseilles and 
some Spanish seaports. I was obliged to go again on board. 
The sea was calm ; the air fresh ; it was a most glorious voy- 
age along the charming Sardinian coast. Full of strength 
and new life I arrived at Marseilles, and, as I here breathed 



266 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

more easily, my longing to see Spain was again renewed. I 
had laid the plan of seeing this country last, as the bouquet 
of my journey. In the suffering state in which I had been I 
was obliged to give it up, but I was now better. I regarded it, 
therefore, as a pointing of the finger of Heaven that I should 
be compelled to go to Marseilles, and determined to venture 
upon the journey. The steam-vessel to Barcelona had, in the 
mean time, just sailed, and several days must pass before an- 
other set out. I determined therefore to travel by short days' 
journeys through the South of France across the Pyrenees. 

Before leaving Marseilles, chance favored me with a short 
meeting with one of my friends from the North, and this was 
Ole Bull ! He came from America, and was received in 
France with jubilees and serenades, of which I was myself a 
witness. At the table d'hote in the Hotel des Empereurs, 
where we both lodged, we flew toward each other. He told 
me, what I should have expected least of all, that my works 
had also many friends in America, that people had inquired 
from him about me with the greatest interest, and that the 
English translations of my romances had been reprinted, and 
spread through the whole country in cheap editions. My 
name flown over the great ocean ! I felt myself at this 
thought quite insignificant, but yet glad and happy ; where- 
fore should I, in preference to so many thousand others, re- 
ceive such happiness? I had and still have a feeling as 
though I were a poor peasant lad over whom a royal mantle 
is thrown. Yet I was and am made happy by all this ! Is 
this vanity, or does it show itself in these expressions of my 
joy? 

Ole Bull went to Algiers, I toward the Pyrenees. Through 
Provence, which looked to me quite Danish, I reached Nismes, 
where the grandeur of the splendid Roman amphitheatre at 
once carried me back to Italy. The memorials of antiquity 
in the South of France I have never heard praised as their 
greatness and number deserve ; the so called Maison Quarree 
is still standing in all its splendor, like the Theseus Temple at 
Athens : Rome has nothing so well preserved. 

In Nismes dwells the baker Reboul, who writes the most 
charming poems \ whoever may not chance to know him from 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 267 

these, is, however, well acquainted with him through Lamar- 
tine's "Journey to the East" I found him at his house, 
stepped into the bakehouse, and addressed myself to a man in 
shirt sleeves who was putting bread into the oven ; it was 
Reboul himself! A noble countenance which expressed a 
manly character greeted me. When I mentioned my name, 
he was courteous enough to say he was acquainted with it 
through the " Revue de Paris," and begged me to visit him in 
the afternoon, when he should be able to entertain me better. 
When I came again I found him in a little room which might 
be called almost elegant, adorned with pictures, casts, and 
books, not alone French literature, but translations of the 
Greek classics. A picture on the wall represented his most 
celebrated poem, " The Dying Child," from Marmier's " Chan- 
sons du Nord." He knew I had treated the same subject, and 
I told him that this was written in my school days. If in the 
morning I had found him the industrious baker, he was now 
the poet completely ; he spoke with animation of the literature 
of his country, and expressed a wish to see the North, the 
scenery and intellectual life of which seemed to interest him. 
With great respect I took leave of a man whom the Muses 
have not meanly endowed, and who yet has good sense 
enough, spite of all the homage paid him, to remain steadfast 
to his honest business, and prefer being the most remarkable 
baker of Nismes to losing himself in Paris, after a short 
triumph, among hundreds of other poets. 

By railway I now travelled by way of Montpellier to Cette, 
with that rapidity which a train possesses in France ; you fly 
there as though for a wager with the Wild Huntsman. I in- 
voluntarily remembered that at Basle, at the corner of a street 
where formerly the celebrated " Dance of Death " was painted, 
there is written up in large letters, " Dance of Death," and on 
the opposite corner, "Way to the Railroad." This singular 
juxtaposition just at the frontiers of France, gives play to the 
fancy ; in this rushing flight it came into my thoughts ; it 
seemed as though the steam whistle gave the signal to the 
dance. On German railways one does not have such wild 
fancies. 

The islander loves the sea as the mountaineer loves his 



268 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

mountains ! Every seaport town, however small it may be, 
receives in my eyes a peculiar charm from the sea. Was it 
the sea, in connection perhaps with the Danish tongue, which 
sounded in my ears in two houses in Cette, that made this 
town so homelike to me ? I know not, but I felt as if I were 
in Denmark rather than in the South of France. When far 
from your country you enter a house where all, from the master 
and mistress to the servants, speak your own language, as was 
here the case, these home tones have a real power of enchant- 
ment : like the mantle of Faust, in a moment they transport 
you, house and all, into your own land. Here, however, there 
was no northern summer, but the hot sun of Naples ; it might 
even have burnt Faust's cap. The sun's rays destroyed all 
strength. For many years there had not been such a sum- 
mer, even here ; and from the country round about came 
accounts of people who had died from the heat: the very 
nights were hot. I was told beforehand I should be unable 
to bear the journey in Spain. I felt this myself, but then 
Spain was to be the bouquet of my journey. I already saw 
the Pyrenees ; the blue mountains enticed me — and one 
morning early I found myself on the steamboat. 

The sun rose higher ; it burnt above, it burnt from the 
expanse of waters ; myriads of jelly-like medusas filled the 
river ; it was as though the sun's rays had changed the whole 
sea into a heaving world of animal life ; I had never before 
seen anything like it. In the Languedoc Canal we had all to 
get into a large boat which had been constructed more for 
goods than for passengers. The deck was covered with boxes 
and trunks, and these again occupied by people who sought 
shade under umbrellas. It was impossible to move ; no 
railing surrounded this pile of boxes and people, which was 
drawn along by three or four horses attached by long ropes. 
Beneath in the cabins it was as crowded ; people sat close to 
each other, like flies in a cup of sugar. A lady who had 
fainted from the heat and tobacco smoke, was carried in and 
laid upon the only unoccupied spot on the floor ; she was 
brought here for air, but air there was none, spite of the 
number of fans in motion ; there were no refreshments to be 
had, not even a drink of water, except the warm, yellow water 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 269 

which the canal afforded. Over the cabin windows hung 
booted legs, which at the same time that they deprived the 
cabin of light, seemed to give a substance to the oppressive 
air. Shut up in this place one had also the torment of being 
forced to listen to a man who was always trying to say some- 
thing witty; the stream of words played about his lips as the 
canal water about the boat. I made myself a way through 
boxes, people, and umbrellas, and stood in a boiling-hot air ; 
on either side the prospect was eternally the same : green 
grass, a green tree, flood-gates — green grass, a green tree, 
flood-gates — and then again the same \ it was enough to 
drive one insane. 

At the distance of a half-hour's journey from Beziers we 
were put on land ; I felt almost ready to faint, and there was 
no carriage here, for the omnibus had not expected us so 
early ; the sun burnt infernally. People say the South of 
France is a portion of Paradise ; under the present circum- 
stances it seemed to me a portion of hell with all its heat. 
In Beziers the diligence was waiting, but all the best places 
were already taken ; and I here for the first, and I hope for 
the last time, got into the hinder part of such a conveyance. 
An ugly woman in slippers, and with a head-dress a yard high, 
which she hung up, took her seat beside me ; and now came 
a singing sailor who had certainly drunk too many healths ; 
then a couple of dirty fellows, whose first maneuver was to 
pull off their boots and coats and sit upon them, hot and dirty, 
whilst the thick clouds of dust whirled into the vehicle, and 
the sun burnt and blinded me. It was impossible to endure 
this further than Nar bonne ; sick and suffering, I sought rest, 
but then came gens-d'armes and demanded my passport, and 
then just as night began, a fire must needs break out in the 
neighboring village ; the fire alarm resounded, the fire-engines 
rolled along, it was just as though all manner of tormenting 
spirits were let loose. From here as far as the Pyrenees 
there followed repeated demands for your passport, so weari- 
some that you know nothing like it even in Italy : they gave 
you as a reason, the nearness to the Spanish frontiers, the 
number of fugitives from thence, and several murders which 
had taken place in the neighborhood : all conduced to make 
the journey in my then state of health a real torment. 



27O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

I reached Perpignan. The sun had here also swept the 
streets of people ; it was only at night time that they came 
forth, but then it was like a roaring stream, as though a real 
tumult were about to destroy the town. The human crowd 
moved in waves beneath my windows, a loud shout resounded ; 
it pierced through my sick frame. What was that ? — what 
did it mean ? " Good evening, M. Arago ! " resounded from 
the strongest voices, thousands repeated it, and music sounded ; 
it was the celebrated Arago, who was staying in the room 
next to mine : the people gave him a serenade. Now this 
was the third I had witnessed on my journey. Arago ad- 
dressed them from the balcony, the shouts of the people filled 
the streets. There are few evenings in my life when I have 
felt so ill as on this one ; the tumult went through my nerves ; 
the beautiful singing which followed could not refresh me. 
Ill as I was, I gave up every thought of travelling into Spain ; 
I felt it would be impossible for me. Ah, if I could only 
recover strength enough to reach Switzerland ! I was filled 
with horror at the idea of the journey back. I was advised 
to hasten as quickly as possible to the Pyrenees, and there 
breathe the strengthening mountain air : the baths of Vernet 
were recommended as cool and excellent, and I had a letter 
of introduction to the head of the establishment there. After 
an exhausting journey of a night and some hours in the morn- 
ing, I reached the place. The air was cool, and more strength- 
ening, than I breathed for months. A few days here entirely 
restored me, my pen flew again over the paper, and my 
thoughts toward that wonderful Spain. 

Vernet as yet is not one of the well-known bathing places, 
although it possesses the peculiarity of being visited all the 
year round. The most celebrated visitor last winter was 
Ibrahim Pacha ; his name still lives on the lips of the hostess 
and waiters as the greatest glory of the establishment; his 
rooms were shown first as a curiosity. Among the anecdotes 
current about him is the story of his two French phrases, merci 
and tres Men, which he pronounced in a perfectly wrong man- 
ner. 

In every respect, Vernet among baths is as yet in a state of 
innocence ; it is only in point of great bills that the Command- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 27 I 

ant has been able to raise it on a level with the first in 
Europe. As for the rest, you live here in a solitude, and sepa- 
rated from the world as in no other bathing-place ; for the 
amusement of the guests nothing in the least has been done ; 
this must be sought in wanderings on foot or on donkey-back 
among the mountains \ but here all is so peculiar and full of 
variety, that the want of artificial pleasures is the less felt. 

It is here as though the most opposite natural productions 
had been mingled together — northern and southern, moun- 
tain and valley vegetation. From one point you will look 
over vineyards, and up to a mountain which looks like a sample 
card of corn-fields, and green meadows where the hay stands 
in cocks \ from another you will only see the naked, metallic 
rocks, with strange crags jutting forth from them, long and nar- 
row as though they were broken statues or pillars ; now you 
walk under poplar-trees, through small meadows, where the 
balm-mint grows, as thoroughly Danish a production as though 
it were cut out of Zealand ; now you stand under shelter of the 
rock, where cypresses and figs spring forth among vine leaves, 
and see a piece of Italy. But the soul of the whole, the 
pulses which beat audibly in millions through the mountain 
chain, are the springs. There is a life, a babbling in the ever- 
rushing waters ! It springs forth everywhere, murmurs in the 
moss, rushes over the great stones. There is a movement, a 
life which it is impossible for words to give ; you hear a con- 
stant rushing chorus of a million strings ; above and below 
you, and all around, you hear the babbling of the river 
nymphs. 

High on the cliff, at the edge of a steep precipice, are the 
remains of a Moorish castle ; the clouds hang where hung the 
balcony ; the path along which the ass now goes, leads through 
the hall. From here you can enjoy the view over the whole 
valley, which, long and narrow, seems like a river of trees, 
which winds among the red, scorched rocks ; and in the mid- 
dle of this green valley rises, terrace-like on a hill, the little 
town of Vernet, which only wants minarets to look like a Bul- 
garian town. A miserable church with two long holes as win- 
dows, and close to it a ruined tower, form the upper portion, 
then come the dark brown roofs, and the dirty gray houses 



272 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



with opened shutters instead of windows ; but picturesque it 
certainly is. 

But if you enter the town itself — where the apothecary's 
shop is, as also the book-seller's — poverty is the only impres- 
sion. Almost all the houses are built of unhewn stones, piled 
one upon another, and two or three gloomy holes form door 
and windows, through which the swallows fly out and in. 
Wherever I entered, I looked through the worn floor of the first 
story down into a chaotic gloom beneath. On the wall hangs 
generally a bit of fat meat with the hairy skin attached ; it 
was explained to me that this was used to rub their shoes 
with. The sleeping-room is painted in the most glaring man- 
ner with saints, angels, garlands, and crowns al fresco^ as if 
done when the art of painting was in its greatest state of im- 
perfection. 

The people are unusually ugly ; the very children are real 
gnomes ; the expression of childhood does not soften the 
clumsy features. But a few hours' journey on the other side 
of the mountains, on the Spanish side, there blooms beauty, 
there flash merry brown eyes. The only poetical picture I 
retain of Vernet was this. In the market-place, under a splen- 
didly large tree, a wandering peddler had spread out all his 
wares, — handkerchiefs, books, and pictures, — a whole bazaar, 
but the earth was his table ; all the ugly children of the town, 
burnt through by the sun, stood assembled round these 
fine things ; several old women looked out from their open 
shops ; on horses and asses the visitors to the bath, ladies 
and gentlemen, rode by in long procession, whilst two little 
children, half hid behind a heap of planks, played at being 
cocks, and shouted all the time " Kekkeriki ! " 

Far more of a town, habitable and well-appointed, is the 
garrison town of Villefranche, with its castle of the age of 
Louis XIV., which lies a few hours' journey from this place. 
The road by Olette to Spain passes through it, and there is 
also some business ; many houses attract your eye by their 
beautiful Moorish windows carved in marble. The church is 
built half in the Moorish style, the altars are such as are seen in 
Spanish churches, and the Virgin stands there with the Child, 
all dressed in gold and silver. I visited Villefranche one of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



2 73 



the first days of my sojourn here ; all the visitors made the 
excursion with me, to which end all the horses and asses far 
and near were brought together ; horses were put into the 
Commandant's venerable coach, and it was occupied by peo- 
ple within and without, just as though it had been a French 
public vehicle. A most amiable Holsteiner, the best rider of 
the company, the well-known painter Dauzats, a friend of 
Alexandre Dumas's, led the train. The forts, the barracks, 
and the caves were seen ; the little town of Cornelia also, 
with its interesting church, was not passed over. Everywhere 
were found traces of the power and art of the Moors ; every- 
thing in this neighborhood speaks more of Spain than of 
France ; the very language wavers between the two. 

And here in this fresh mountain nature, on the frontiers 
of a land whose beauty and defects I am yet to become 
acquainted with, I will close these pages, which will make in 
my life a frontier to coming years, with their beauty and de- 
fects. Before I leave the Pyrenees these written pages will 
fly to Germany, a great section of my life ; I myself shall fol- 
low, and a new and unknown section will begin. What may 
it unfold ? I know not, but thankfully, hopefully, I look for- 
ward. My whole life, the bright as well as the gloomy days, 
led to the best. It is like a voyage to some known point, — 
I stand at the rudder, I have chosen my path, but God rules 
the storm and the sea. He may direct it otherwise ; and then, 
happen what may, it will be the best for me. This faith is 
firmly planted in my breast, and makes me happy. 

The story of my life, up to the present hour, lies unrolled 
before me, so rich and beautiful that I could not have in- 
vented it. I feel that I am a child of good fortune ; almost 
every one meets me full of love and candor, and seldom has 
my confidence in human nature been deceived. From the 
prince to the poorest peasant I have felt the noble human 
heart beat. It is a joy to live and to believe in God and man. 
Openly and full of confidence, as if I sat among dear friends, 
I have here related the story of my life, have spoken both of 
my sorrows and joys, and have expressed my pleasure at each 
mark of applause and recognition, as I believe I might even 
express it before God himself. But then, whether this may 
18 . 



274 THE ST °RY OF MY LIFE. 

be vanity ? I know not^ my heart was affected and humble 
at the same time, my thought was gratitude to God. That I 
have related it is not alone because such a biographical sketch 
as this was desired from me for the collected edition of my 
works, but because, as has been already said, the history of 
my life will be the best commentary to all my works. 

In a few days I shall say farewell to the Pyrenees, and 
return through Switzerland to dear, kind Germany, where so 
much joy has flowed into my life, where I possess so many 
sympathizing friends, where my writings have been so kindly 
and encouragingly received, and where also these sheets will 
be gently criticised. 

When the Christmas-tree is lighted, — when, as people say, 
the white bees swarm, — I shall be, God willing, again in 
Denmark with my dear ones, my heart filled with the flowers 
of travel, and strengthened both in body and mind : then 
will new works grow upon paper : may God lay his blessing 
upon them ! He will do so. A star of good fortune shines 
upon me ; there are thousands who deserve it far more than 
I j I often myself cannot conceive why I, in preference to 
numberless others, should receive so much joy : may it con- 
tinue to shine ! But should it set, perhaps whilst I conclude 
these lines, still it has shone, I have received my rich portion ; 
let it set ! From this also the best will spring. To God and 
men my thanks, my love ! 



CHAPTER XIII. 

NINE years have elapsed, — years rich for history • serious 
but great days for Denmark ; sorrowful, but at the same 
time also happy ones for me. They have brought me my 
country's full acknowledgment ; they have, it is true, made me 
older, but still they have kept me young ; they have brought 
me repose and serenity. I am here going to unfold this new 
period of my life ! 

Strengthened by the mountain air, and having regained my 
vigor for the homeward journey, I intended to go from Vernet 
to Switzerland, arranging it so that I only travelled nights in 
the diligences and remained the hot days in Perpignan and 
Narbonne. Still it seemed to me as if I was transferred from 
the life-nourishing air to an element where the vital substance 
was^anting. A heavy, dull, and gloomy air surrounded me, 
producing real suffering, and I soon felt as if every nerve were 
on fire. The nights brought no freshness except for the flies, 
which now gathered strength for their round-dances. A 
couple of days' or rather of nights' repose at Cette, where I 
slept on my mattress on the balcony of the house under a 
starlit heaven, kept me up. All that I know about the beauty 
of Montpellier is that it lay in sunbeams, which burnt me 
through. My room, closed with tight shutters, was the com- 
mon abode for all the travellers, who were dressed as if 
going to take a bath. 

During our swift flight on the railroad we got information 
of a horrible disaster which had occurred on the northern 
railway of France. At any other time, had I been well, this 
would have stirred my fancy, but now I was so affected by 
the burning sun of Southern France, that I felt a kind of 
sea-sickness ; I was in a state of depression that made me 
indifferent to all that happened. The railroad stopped at 



276 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Nimes, and we were obliged to take the crowded and dusty 
diligence for Avignon. 

The almond-trees stood laden with ripe fruit, and almonds 
and figs were almost the only things I lived on. Resting, and 
that always behind closed window-shutters, is a very sad trav- 
elling-life ! The Pope's castle here resembled a fortress ; it 
had been transformed to a barrack, and the cathedral looked 
as if it were only a little wing of it. In the museum was 
Vernet's statue of Thorwaldsen, on which some wiseacre had 
erased with a lead-pencil the word " danois " from his name. 
Two pictures of Vernet, given by him " to the good city of 
Avignon," hung here, representing " Mazeppa," but a little dif- 
ferent from the engravings. There was life and movement in 
the streets in the evening ; a mountebank on horseback with 
a drum cried his wares, like another" Dulcamara. Vine # 
leaves were profusely twined about the windows, like awnings 
stretched out to shelter from the sunbeams. I was very 
near Vaucluse, but I had not strength enough to make a trip 
thither; all that I had was to be saved for getting me to 
Switzerland, where I expected to find coolness among the 
mountains. So I was not to see the celebrated fountain of 
Vaucluse, the stream that bore the image of Laura, -*■ that 
image which Petrarch's verses will eternally bear round the 
world. 

The river Rhone runs so rapidly that the steamboat down 
the stream requires only one day between Lyons and Mar- 
seilles, while four days in all against the stream. I preferred* 
the quick-rolling diligence, which started like the wild horses 
in the Leonore ballads, to the disagreeable steamer. The an- 
tique Roman theatre of Orange stood high above all the other 
newer buildings ; the Arch of Triumph of Septimius Severus, 
and all the rich works of Roman magnificence with which the 
banks of the Rhone are strewn, carried one's thoughts toward 
Italy. I had never before known anything of the grandeur 
of those Roman remains which the South of France here 
presents. The banks of the river became more and more 
various; I saw towns with beautiful Gothic churches, and on 
the mountains old castles, lying there like huge bats. Beau- 
tiful, hovering suspension-bridges were stretched over the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 2 J "J 

swift stream, against which the dirty vessel worked itself up. 
At length I arrived at Lyons, where the river Rhone takes up 
the Saone. From one of the most elevated streets there ^ 
discerned, many, many miles far to the northeast, a white 
shining cloud, rising over the even, green plain ; it was Mont 
Blanc : there was Switzerland ! So near was I now to that 
place, where I hoped again to drink in the air and feel new 
freedom in body and soul ; but the Swiss Consul would not 
vise my passport until the police of Lyons had given their 
signature, and the passport was declared irregular. I care, 
perhaps, too much about passports and vises when I travel, 
and my anxiety to have everything right is no doubt absurd ; 
yet for all that I am always the man among thousands of 
other travellers who meets with the most passport annoyances. 
Now they cannot read, then a subordinate clerk writes a wrong 
number on it so that it is not to be found again • an Italian 
boundary-officer finds fault with the name " Christian," and 
thinks that it is a religious sect, calling themselves particu- 
larly by that name. In Lyons they told me that the passport 
should have been sent from the frontier directly to Paris to 
be verified there by the Minister of the^ Interior. I ran the 
whole day to and from the Prefecture de Police, until I threw 
myself upon the compassion of one of the higher police offi- 
cers, to whom I declared that nobody had before claimed of 
me nor told me that I must send my passport to Paris, where 
I had no intention of going. They told me that it was 
necessary to return to Marseilles in order to let the Danish 
Consul get the passport in order for Switzerland. I declared 
that I could not bear the idea of travelling further, neither 
could I stay longer in hot Lyons, but must go to the mountains ! 
It was a polite, educated man I had to do with ; with the 
passport in his hand he examined me as to time and place, 
when I had been at the different places, where every vise was 
given, and soon was aware that nothing could hinder my 
departure, arranged everything in the best way, and the 
following day I could start. 

In the evening I sat with a comfortable mind at the opera, 
which was a German one ; a company from Zurich performed 
in one evening Flotow's " Stradella " and Weber's " Der 



278 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Freischiitz." There was no difficulty about getting through 
both, for we only got the music of " Der Freischiitz," the dia- 
logue was omitted ; they thought, I suppose, that the French- 
men would not understand it; but it seemed very funny, 
immediately after Caspar's drinking-song, to see Max seize 
his hat, nod, and go out ; while Caspar sang triumphantly as 
if he were sure of the game only by that song. 

I reached Switzerland, and here also the heat was oppress- 
ive j the snow at " The Virgin " on Mont Blanc itself was 
less than it had been for many years ; long, black stripes were 
to be seen in the rocks ; but here the air was more serene, and 
in the evening there was more coolness. I went immediately 
to Vevey ; here, on the lake -side, with Savoy's snow-covered 
mountains, it was a blessing to breathe and live ! Like red 
stars upon the black, rocky ground, the great fires, which the 
shepherds and charcoal-burners lighted on the opposite side 
of the sea, shone in the evening. I visited Chillon again. 
Byron's name, which he himself had carved on the pillar, had 
since the last time I was here, been molested, — somebody 
had tried to efface it by scratching over it. An Englishman 
had done it, but he was disturbed ; even if he had succeeded 
in erasing the name of Byron here, in the world it would not 
have been erased. Two new names were added, those of Vic- 
tor Hugo and Robert Peel. 

In Freiburg I saw the most bold, the most grand suspension- 
bridge I ever have seen ; it hovered high in the air over val- 
ley and river, and swung under the weight of heavy wagons. 
In the Middle Ages such a bridge would have belonged to the 
world of wonders ; science has brought our time into a region 
which before was supernatural. 

At last we reached Berne, where Baggesen lived so long a 
time, married his wife, and spent happy days. Just as he saw 
them, so now also the Alps glistened with the same color of 
fire when the sun set. I spent a few days here and at Inter- 
laken. I made trips to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald ; the 
refreshing misty spray that was carried by the wind from the 
waterfall of Staubbach, the chilly air in the caverns of Grin- 
delwald's glaciers, made it paradisiacal after my travel through 
purgatory. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



279 



1 went to Basle, and from there by railroad through France 
to Strasbourg. Steam navigation on the Rhine commenced 
here. The air lay heavily and warmly over the river ; we sailed 
the whole day long ; the steamer was at last crowded, mostly 
with Turners, who sang and made merry ; they were ill dis- 
posed toward Denmark and all that was Danish: Christian 
VIII. had issued his proclamation. I was first informed of it 
here ; it was not pleasant at all to travel through Baden \ no- 
body knew me, and I would not have anything to do with 
anybody, but sat sick and suffering during the whole tour. 

By way of Frankfort I reached dear Weimar, and here at 
Beaulieu's I was taken care of and got repose. I spent beau- 
tiful days at the summer castle of Ettersburg, where I was 
invited by the hereditary Grand Duke. In Jena I worked 
together with Professor Wolff at a German translation of sev- 
eral of my lyric poems \ but my health was very delicate. I, 
who love the South so much, was obliged now to acknowledge 
that I was a son of the North, whose flesh, blood, and nerves 
have their roots in snow and storms. Slowly I returned home- 
ward. In Hamburg I received from Christian VIII. the order 
of Dannebrog, which, as was said, had been destined for me 
before my departure, and therefore I ought to get it before I 
again reached my native country. I arrived there two days 
after. 

In Kiel I met with the family of the Landgrave and Prince 
Christian, afterward called the " Prince of Denmark,' 7 and his 
wife ; a royal steamer was sent for these high families, and I 
was invited to have the pleasure and comfort of going with 
them \ but the sea-voyage was very disagreeable, the passage 
lasted two nights and days, and in mist and storm I landed at 
the custom-house of Copenhagen. 

Hartmann's opera of "Little Christine/' for which I had 
written the text, was during my absence brought on the stage 
and met with great success, which was ascribed to me. The 
music was appreciated, as it deserved, for it had the true Dan- 
ish flavor, so peculiar, so touching, Heiberg had even taken 
a liking to it. I longed to hear and see that little work, and it 
happened that the very same day I arrived home " The Little 
Kirsten " was performed. 



28o THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" I am sure you will enjoy great pleasure/' said Hartmann. 
" People are very well satisfied both with music and text ! " 
I entered the theatre, and was noticed ; I perceived this, and 
when " Little Christine " was finished there was applause, 
but also much hissing. 

" That never happened before ! " said Hartmann \ " I do not 
understand it ! " 

" But I do," answered I. " Do not be vexed, it does not 
concern you ; my countrymen, who saw that I had returned 
home, wished to give me a greeting ! " 

I was still suffering in health, and could not overcome the 
effects of my summer sojourn in the South; only the refresh- 
ing winter coolness kept me up ; I was in a nervous, weak 
state, while my soul on the contrary was very active. I 
finished at that time the poem " Ahasuerus." 

H. C. Orsted, to whom in recent years I had read all I 
wrote, acquired more and more influence over me by his Lively 
sympathy and his spiritual judgment. As powerfully as his 
heart beat for the beautiful and good, so were his thoughts 
always searching in it indefatigably for the truth. One day I 
brought him a Danish translation I had made of Byron's 
" Darkness." I had been captivated by the grand, fantastic 
picture which the poet here has given, and was therefore as- 
tonished to hear Orsted declare it a total failure, because it 
was untrue all through, one addition in it more foolish than 
another. Orsted proved it, and I understood and acknowl- 
edge the truth of the words he spoke. 

" A poet may think if he pleases," said he, " that the sun 
disappeared from heaven, but he must know that quite othei 
results would follow than that of darkness and coldness ; those 
events are only crack-brained fantasies." And I felt the 
truth in it and I accepted already then the truths which in his 
work, " Spirit in Nature," he expresses for the poets of his age. 
As representatives of the advanced knowledge of the day, they 
ought to draw their images and expressions from science and 
not from a by-gone poetical armory ; but the poet, in picturing 
a past time, employs those representations and ideas of the 
world which would be familiar to the characters represented. 
The true and right thought, which Orsted afterward ex- 
pressed so clearly in his work, was to my great astonishment 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 28 I 

not understood even by Mynster. One may find several 
thoughtful treatises in the work which he then read to me ; 
when he had finished reading, we talked of it, and with his 
modesty he sometimes listened to an objection from me; the 
only one I made was, that the dialogue form, which reminds 
one of Campe's " Robinson," had now grown obsolete; that 
this form was used here, where there was no occasion for char 
acter-painting, merely the names of the speakers were required, 
and that without these the whole might be quite as clearly 
understood. 

" You are perhaps right," said he, with all his amiable- 
ness ; " but I cannot immediately decide to alter that which 
for years has been presented to me in this form, but I will reflect 
upon your words and think of it when I write something more." 

There was a fountain of knowledge, experience, and pru- 
dence which flowed forth from him ; he also possessed a lovely 
nature, something innocent and unconscious like the child ; 
a rare nature revealing the stamp of deity, and to this must 
be added his deep religiousness ; through the glass of science 
he saw that greatness of God which it is the beauty of Chris- 
tianity to acknowledge even with the eyes shut. We talked 
often of the religious truths so profound and blessed \ we pe- 
rused together the first book of the Pentateuch, and I heard 
the childishly religious man, the developed thinker, expound- 
ing the myths of old ages, and the traditions of the creation 
of the world. I always turned away clear in thought and rich 
in mind from the lovely and excellent Orsted, and in the most 
heavy hours of misjudgment and discouragement he was, as I 
must repeat, the one that sustained me and promised me bet- 
ter days. 

One day as I left him with a suffering heart, occasioned by 
the injustice and hardness inflicted upon me from with- 
out, the old gentleman could not go to rest until, late in the 
evening, he had sought me in my home, and once more ex- 
pressed to me his sympathy and consolation. That touched me 
so deeply that I forgot all my sorrow and deep feelings, and 
shed tears of thankfulness for his great kindness \ I again 
gained strength and courage for poetry and work. 

By my " collected works," and by the different editions of my 
single writings, I became more and more known in Germany, 



282 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

and my works met with great favor ; the stories, and " The 
Picture-book without Pictures " were most read ; the first 
even found imitators. Many books and poems were sent me 
with kind and touching words. I received from Germany 
one: "With affectionate greetings from German children Jo 
the dear friend of children in Denmark, H. C. Andersen." 

In the course of the year several of my writings, such as 
"The Bazaar,"' "Wonder Stories," and "The Picture-book 
without Pictures," were published in England, and were there 
received by the public and the critics in the same kind way 
as "The Improvisatore " before. I received letters from 
many unknown friends of both sexes, whom I there had won. 
King Christian VIII. received my works, richly bound, from 
the well-known London book-seller, Richard Bentley. One of 
our men of note told me that the King on that occasion ex- 
pressed his joy at the reception I was getting, but also his 
astonishment at my being so often attacked and depreciated 
at home while abroad I was fully acknowledged. The kind- 
ness the King felt for me became greater when he read my Life. 

" Now for the first time I know you ! " said he kindly to 
me, as I entered the presence-chamber in order to bring him 
my latest book. " I see you very seldom ! " continued he ; 
" we must oftener have a little talk together ! " 

" That depends on your Majesty ! " answered I. 

" Yes, yes, you are right ! " answered he, and now he ex- 
pressed his joy at my reception in Germany, and especially in 
England ; spoke of the story of my life, which he had under- 
stood clearly, and before we separated he asked me, " Where 
do you dine to-morrow ? " 

" At a restaurant ! " answered I. 

" Then come rather to us ! dine with me and my wife : we 
dine at four o'clock ! " 

I had, as I have before mentioned, received from the Prin- 
cess of Prussia a beautiful album, in which were several inter- 
esting autographs ; their Majesties looked through it, and 
when I received it back again King Christian VIII. had writ- 
ten with his own hand the significant words : " To have 
acquired an honorable place by means of well-applied talent 
is better than favor and gift. Let these lines recall to you 
your affectionate Christian R." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 283 

It was dated the second of April • the King knew that that 
was my birthday. Queen Caroline Amelia also had written 
honorable and dear words ; no gifts could have rejoiced me 
more than such a treasure in spirit and word. 

One day the King asked whether I should not also see 
England. I answered yes, that I intended to go there the 
coming summer. " You must have some money from me ! " 
said his Majesty. I thanked him and said, — 

" I have no need of it ! I have eight hundred rix-dollars 
from the German edition of my writings, and this money I 
shall spend ! " 

" But," said the King with a smile, " you represent now 
the Danish literature in England, and you should therefore 
live a little more comfortably ! " 

" That I also expect to do, and when I have spent my 
money I shall return home ! " 

" You must write directly to me what you want ! " said the 
King. 

" O no, your Majesty, I have no need for it now ; another 
time I should perhaps be more in want of your Majesty's 
favor \ now I must not make use of it ; it is not right always 
to be importunate, — it is so unpleasant for me to speak about 
money. But if I might dare write to your Majesty without 
asking for anything; write, not as to the King — for then it 
would only be a letter of ceremony ; if I might dare write to 
one who is truly dear to me ! n The King granted my wish 
and seemed to be pleased with the manner in which I met 
his favor. 

In the middle of May, 1847, I set out by land from Copen- 
hagen. It was in the beautiful spring-time ; I saw the stork 
flying from its nest with wings stretched out. Whitsuntide 
was spent at old Glorup ; I witnessed at Odense the marks- 
men's celebration, which was one of the great days of my 
boyhood. A parcel of boys came, just as when I was a lit- 
tle fellow, carrying the target riddled with shot ; the whole 
crowd waved green branches, like the wood of Birnam coming 
to Dunsinane ; the same frolic, the same thronging — but how 
different it seemed to me now. A poor crack-brained young 
fellow outside my windows made a deep impression on me } 






284 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

he had nobly formed features and lustrous eyes, but there 
was something troubled in his whole person, and the boys 
made sport of him and chased him. I thought of myself, of 
my boyhood, of my insane grandfather. If I had remained 
in Odense, and had been put to an apprenticeship there ; if 
the powers of fancy, which I then possessed in high degree, 
had been blunted by time and circumstances, or if I had not 
learned to become fused with the society that surrounded me, 
how had I then perhaps been looked upon ? I don't know, 
but the sight of that unhappy fool chased about outside my 
windows made my heart beat violently ; my thoughts and 
thanksgiving flew up to God for all his mercy and love to me. 

I travelled by the way of Hamburg, where I made the 
acquaintance of the author Glaszbrenner and his wife, the 
excellent actress Peroni-Glaszbrenner, who is so full of genius. 
A Copenhagen newspaper has said that the gay satirist had 
weakened my reputation as a romancer \ I do not know any- 
thing about it, but I have a poem from him by which I can 
see that the man is not so much against me ! 

After a visit with dear friends at Oldenburg, I proceeded to 
Holland. The diligence rolled us along over the brick-laid 
road, smooth and clean as the floor of a dairy. Houses and 
towns were the picture of wealth and cleanliness. In the 
fortress-town of Deventer it was-market day : there was a 
throng of people in spruce dresses ; in the market-place 
stood booths, like those I had seen in former days on the 
Deer-park hill at Copenhagen • the chiming of bells sounded 
from the church- towers, the Dutch flag waved. 

From Utrecht I came by the railway in an hour to Amster- 
dam, "where, like amphibious creatures, they live half on 
land, half in water ! " But it is not quite so bad as that, and 
it did not at *all put me in mind of Venice, the beaver-city 
with the. dead palaces. The first man I met in the street and 
asked the way, answered me so intelligibly that I thought the 
Dutch language must be very easy to understand ! but it was 
Danish that he spoke ; he was a French journeyman hair- 
cutter, who had been a long while with the hair-dressei 
Causse in Copenhagen, had learnt a little Danish, recognized 
me, and when I accosted him in French answered me in 
Danish as well as he could. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 285 

Shade trees stood on the banks of the canals ; variegated 
clumsy tug-boats, with man and wife and the whole family 
on board, glided softly by ; the wife stood at the rudder, the 
husband sat smoking his long pipe. It was striking to see 
in the crowded street a couple of small boys, whose clothes 
were in two colors ; half the back of the coat was black, the 
other half red ; the pantaloons also, each leg had its color. 
Now came by several small girls, who were also dressed in 
different colors, quite as convicts are distinguished at home. 
I asked what it signified, and I was told that they were 
orphan children, and were dressed here in that way. 

In the theatres the plays were in French ; the National 
Theatre was closed during my stay here, which was very 
unfortunate, for otherwise I might have seen true Dutch 
customs : they smoke during the whole representation, and 
Jan, as almost all waiters in Holland are called, is going 
about, lights the pipes and brings tea, which is drunk out of 
great saucers ; the comedy is meanwhile still going on, the 
verses are sung, and tobacco-pipes are smoking, so that the 
smoke spreads out over the spectators and the stage. I 
heard this from different Dutchmen, and I dare believe that 
it was not exaggeration. 

My first introduction in Amsterdam was in a book-store, 
where I went to buy a book of Dutch and Flemish poems. 
The man I spoke with looked in surprise at me, made a 
short apology, and ran away. I did not know what it could 
mean, and was about going when two men came out from the 
next room, who also stared at me, and one of them asked if I 
were not the Danish poet Andersen! They showed me my 
portrait, that hung in the room ; it was by that they had 
known me ; the Dutch newspapers had already announced 
that I was expected. 

A Danish gentleman, Mr. Nyegaard, who has lived many 
years in Holland, and is called there Van Nieweuhuis, had 
previously translated' into Dutch all my novels ; not long 
before my arrival " The Story of my Life " and several of the 
stories (" Sprookjes ") were reproduced and published in Am- 
sterdam. The editor of " De Tijd," the recently deceased 
Van der Vliet, had with great kindness made mention of my 
literarv labors ; my portrait appeared in the " Weekly." 



286 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Thus I soon heard and perceived that I possessed many 
friends in Holland. H. C. Orsted had furnished me with a 
letter to Professor Frohlich at Amsterdam, and by him I was 
introduced to the well known Dutch poet, Van Lennep, the 
author of " De Roos van Dekama " and " Haarlems Ver- 
lossing," which are reckoned among the most excellent novels 
in Dutch literature. In Van Lennep I learned to know a 
handsome, kind man, living in a comfortable, rich-looking 
house ; I was not received there as a stranger, but as a 
welcome guest in the family ; beautiful, kind-looking children 
gathered about me : they knew my stories ; " The Red Shoes " 
(" De Roode Schoentjes ") especially made a deep' impression 
on one of the boys ; it had so strangely affected him that he 
stood quite silently for a long time and gazed on me ; afterward 
he showed me the book where the story was, and there was a 
picture where the shoes were painted red, while the rest of 
the picture was uncolored. The oldest daughter, Sara, a 
very amiable and lively girl, asked me immediately whether 
the ladies of Copenhagen were handsome, and I answered 
her, " Yes, they are like the Dutch ladies ! " She liked to 
hear me speak Danish, and I wrote down for her a few words 
of those which pleased her most. At the dinner-table Van 
Lennep asked me if I thought I could read Dutch, and then 
he presented me with a written sheet. It was a poem of 
his to me, and he read it aloud to the whole circle. I be- 
lieve it is printed in " De Tijd." 

From Amsterdam I went to Harlem by the railway. There 
was a place where we passed over a kind of bank between 
the open North Sea and the sea of Harlem, and I wondered 
at the grand enterprise of pumping out a lake, which had 
already fallen considerably. Harlem's mighty organ, the 
greatest in the world, was just sounding its eight thousand 
metal pipes beneath the beautiful timber vault when I entered 
the hall. 

The language sounded very queerly, half Danish, half Ger- 
man, and I saw the inscription on several houses : " Hier gaat 
mair nit porren ! " — " Here they went out to rouse the peo- 
ple." The chimes were always heard from the church towers; 
the whole country seemed to me a great English park. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 287 

In company with Professor Schlegel and his wife, and Pro- 
fessor Geel, I set out to see the curiosities of Leyden, among 
others the mound raised by the Anglo-Saxons, when those 
under Hengist and Horsa went over to England. In the wait- 
ing-room of the railroad depot hung many pictures and pla- 
cards 1 the largest of those was one which announced Van 
der Vliet/s (i De Tijd " ; my name and portrait were accident- 
ally there ; people became aware of the picture and of me ; I 
felt quite confused, and hastened to get into a carriage. I 
had bought a ticket for the Hague, and I read now on the 
paper they had given me, u 'SGravenhage," the Dutch name 
of the city 1 I did not know it \ the train started, and I expected 
to come to quite another place than the one I meant. The 
first man I discovered from my window at the Hague in the 
street was an acquaintance, a friend from Rome, the Dutch 
composer Verhulst, whom I was said to resemble, if not in 
feature, yet in gait and movement. I nodded to him, he knew 
me, but did not dream of my being at the Hague. An hour 
after, going out to take a walk in the foreign city, the first one 
I met again was Verhulst ; what a welcome he gave me ! We 
talked of Rome, of Copenhagen \ I had to tell him of Hart- 
mann and Gade, whose music Verhulst knew. He praised 
Denmark because it had a Danish opera. I believe that the 
Dutch only have French and Italian music. I accompanied 
him to his home somewhat out of the city ; from the windows 
we looked on fresh, green meadows and fields, so truly Dutch, 
and the chiming bells from the neighboring churches re- 
sounded at the same time \ a flock of storks passed by in 
flight, and here is their home \ even the coat of arms of the 
Hague is a stork. 

I did not know Van der Vliet personally, but he had 
several times written to me, sent me translations and notices 
of my writings. I entered his room ; he was a young, kind- 
hearted man, appeared to be a true child of nature, who 
warmly applauded all that I had written, and was surprised at 
my unexpected visit, — almost overwhelmed by astonishment. 
He had expected to be informed of my arrival, and had 
planned to have me stay with him. He called his young wife ; 
she was even as young and kind as he, but she only spoke 



288 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Dutch ; yet when we did not understand each other we nodded 
kindly and pressed each other's hands. The good people did 
not know all the good they were doing me. Their only child, 
still a little boy, the father said, was named after me, and after 
the poor fiddler, " Christian." The extraordinary happiness 
my presence seemed to cause them touched me ; it was a lit- 
tle home full of love. As I, however, was to stay but a few 
days at the Hague, and as their house lay a little out of the 
way, I preferred to stay at the hotel, which was situated in the 
midst of the city. The husband and wife accompanied me to 
my door in order that we might so much longer be together. 

How much pleasure it gives one in a foreign country to 
meet with kindness like this. My arrival was to them like a 
happy greeting, and our conversation was kept up in a lively 
fashion, with laughing and talking. 

We separated, and on the staircase of the hotel where I 
was staying a gentleman dressed in black stood before me ; 
he told me his name ; I knew him, but how different this was 
from the laughter I just had separated from. Tears rushed 
from the gentleman's eyes ; it was Mr Hensel, the brother-in- 
law of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. He had just arrived from 
Berlin. The physicians desired him to travel, in order to turn 
away his thoughts from his grief which seemed to crush him. 
His excellent, highly gifted wife, Mendelssohn's sister, who so 
much resembled her brother, had suddenly died : she was a 
true musical genius, and possessed in her exterior kindred 
features and expressions. At Berlin I had often met her and 
her husband in society ; she was the life of the company ; 
she had her brother's spirit and boldness, and played like him 
with a dexterity and expression which charmed every one. Not 
long before she had left the dinner-table fresh and gay, and 
had retired to a bower, when she was heard to utter a cry and 
at the same time she expired. Her husband, who is a re- 
nowned portrait-painter, had painted her face as she looked in 
death ; he had brought his work with him, and had placed 
it upon the table in his room. I, who came from joy and 
the joyous, was affected at seeing that strong man so deeply 
troubled and in tears. The year after, as we now know, 
Mendelssohn died even as suddenly, and followed his intellect- 
ual and excellent sister. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 289 

I had been four days at the Hague ; it was Sunday, and I 
intended to go to the French opera, when my friends besought 
me to give that up, and to visit some company that had 
gathered in Hotel de FEurope. " There must be a ball here 
to-night ! " said I, mounting the staircase. " What's the mat- 
ter ? " I asked ; " it looks very solemn ! " My conductor 
smiled and answered : " There is a feast going on ! " I en- 
tered the great saloon and was astonished at the large as- 
sembly. 

" Here," they said, " are some of your Dutch friends, who 
have the pleasure of being together with you this evening ! " 
During my short stay at the Hague, letters had been sent 
round in the country to the friends of my Muse, with whom 
Van der Vliet and others had arranged that they should be 
informed when t would accept their invitation. Even far 
up from the Zuyder Sea, the author of "Opuscules de Jeu- 
nesse," Van Kneppelhout, a rich man, came only for my sake, 
and in spite of the long journey. I found here many artists, 
as well literary celebrities as painters and actors. During 
the repast, at the large table adorned with flowers, toasts were 
given and speeches delivered. I was especially affected by a 
toast of Van der Vliet : " To the elder Collin at Copenhagen : 
that noble man who had adopted Andersen as a son.' 3 "Two 
kings," said he, and then turned himself toward me, " King 
Christian VIII. and Frederick William of Prussia, have each 
given you an order ; when these shall be laid upon your cof- 
fin, then may God grant you for your pious stories the most 
beautiful order of all, the immortal Crown of Life." One 
spoke of Holland's and Denmark's connection on account of 
their language and history. One of the painters, who had 
painted beautiful pictures for my " Picture-book," proposed 
my health as an artist. Kneppelhout spoke in French of free- 
dom of form and fancy. Songs were sung, humorous poems 
recited, and as I had no notion of Dutch comedies and 
tragedies, the renowned tragedian of the Hague, Mr. Peeters, 
played the prison-scene of Schrawemwerth's "Tasso." I 
understood not a word, but I felt the truth of his acting, the 
mimicry of which was as excellent as I ever had seen ; it was 
as if the artist grew pale and red \ it seemed as if he had power 
19 



29O THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

over the very blood in his cheeks ; the whole assembly burst 
out in vociferous acclamations. Beautiful songs were sung, 
and especially the national song, " Wien Neerlands bloed ! " 
stirred me by its melody and inspiration. It was one of the 
most notable evenings of my life. It seems to me that the 
expression of the greatest regard I have met, culminated in 
Sweden and Holland. God, who know r s our hearts, knows 
how humble mine was. It is a blessing to be able to weep 
for very thankfulness and joy. 

I spent the next day in the open air ; Kneppelhout carried 
me out " in Basch," where there was promenading and music j 
we passed by beautiful green meadows, over idyllic roads, and 
by rich country-houses ; we saw Leyden stretching out be- 
fore us. We approached it, and then drove to the village of 
Scheveningen, which is protected from the North Sea by high 
sand dunes and banks. Here again a little circle of friends 
at the table d'hote in the Bath hotel drank toasts to art and 
poetry, to Denmark and Holland. Fishing-boats were lying 
along the shore, the music sounded, the sea rolled; it was 
very homelike this beautiful evening. The next morning as I 
was about to leave the Hague, the landlady brought me a 
number of newspapers, wherein already the feast given me 
was mentioned. A few friends accompanied me to the rail- 
way station. They had become dear to me, and I left them 
sorrowfully, uncertain whether we should ever again meet in * 
this world. 

Rotterdam was for me the first really alive Dutch city 
which I had seen, far more than Amsterdam was. Many 
large vessels were lying in the broad channels ; small Dutch 
gayly painted yachts, where the wife stood at the rudder, — if 
not with slippers and spurs, as in the song of " The Young 
Mr. Pedersen," still at the rudder, and the good husband was 
lying and smoked his pipe. All seemed to be commerce and 
traffic. 

One of the oldest Dutch steamboats, a true steam-snail, 
the Batavier, started the next morning for London, and I 
took passage in it. The ship was heavily laden, and high up 
above the railing big baskets were piled filled with cherries ; 
a great number of emigrants for America were deck passen- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 29 1 

gers. The children played gayly about : here walked a Ger- 
man, as fat as Falstaff, up and down with his lean, already 
almost sea-sick wife, who dreaded the moment when we 
should leave the River Maas and come out into the large 
North Sea; her dog shivered like her, although he was 
wrapped up in a blanket, tied with great loops. The tide 
was falling, and it was eight hours before we reached the 
North Sea ; flat Holland seemed to sink more and more into 
the grayish-yellow sea, and at sunset I went to bed. 

When I came up on deck in the morning we were in sight 
of the English coast At the mouth of the Thames we saw 
fishing-boats by thousands, like a huge flock of chickens, or 
torn pieces of paper, or a great market, or a camp with tents. 
The Thames surely proclaims that England is the ruler of the 
sea ; here its servants fly out, whole masses of innumerable 
ships ; every minute there come as couriers steamboat after 
steamboat, — the courier with heavy smoke-veil in his hat, 
from the top of which the red fire-flower flashes. 

Swelling like swans, one great sailing ship after another 
passed by us ; we saw pleasure-yachts with rich, young gen- 
tlemen : vessel followed vessel ; the further we advanced up 
the Thames the more the crowd increased. I had begun to 
count how many steamers we should meet, but I grew tired 
of it. At Gravesend the Thames appeared as if we were 
entering a smoking marsh on fire, but it was only the steam 
of steamships and smoke of chimneys which lay before us. 
A threatening thunder-storm was drawing over the country ; 
the blue lightning flashed toward the pitchy black sky ; a 
railway-train passed by, its steam waved, and the thunder-clap 
echoed like cannon. 

" People know you are here and wish to bid you welcome ! " 
said a young Englishman to me in joke. " Yes," thought I, 
" our Lord knows it ! " 

The Thames became, one could not believe it possible, 
still more a confusion of steamboats, rowing-boats, sailing- 
vessels, a thronged street ; I could not imagine how those 
masses moved among each other without striking ; the tide 
was going down \ the miry, slimy bottom appeared at the 
banks ; I thought of Qiiilp in Dickens's " Old Curiosity Shop," 
and of Marryat's descriptions of the life on the river. 



292 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

At the custom-house, where we landed, I took a cab and 
drove and drove, thinking that I never should come to an end, 
through that endless city. The crowd was greater and greater, 
carriages after carriages in two streams up and down \ all 
kind of vehicles : omnibuses filled within and without ; large 
wagons, that ought to be called boxes, advertising by placards 
pasted on them ; men with big signs on poles, which they 
lifted over the crowd, and on which one could read one thing 
or another that was to be seen or bought. All was in motion, 
as if half London was stirring from one part of the city to the 
other. Where streets crossed each other there was an ele- 
vated place, surrounded with great stones, where people rushed 
from one of the sidewalks through the nearest line of car- 
riages, waiting here in that asylum for a chance to get through 
the other line and to the opposite sidewalk. 

London, the city of cities ! Yes, I felt immediately that it 
was so, and I learned to know it from day to day afterward. 
Here is Paris but with a mightier power ; here is the life of 
Naples but not its bustle. Omnibus after omnibus passes, — 
they say that there are four thousand, — teams, carts, cabs, 
hansoms, and elegant carriages are rattling, training, rolling, 
and driving away, as if they were going from one important 
event in the city to another. And this tide is always moving ! 
always ! When all those people we now see in such activity 
are in their graves, the same hurried activity will still con- 
tinue here, the same waves of omnibuses, cabs, cars : the men 
walking with signs before and behind, signs on poles, signs 
on coaches, with advertisements of balloons, Bushmen, Vaux- 
hall, panoramas, and Jenny Lind. 

I reached at last the Hotel de Sabloniere in Leicester 
Square, which had been recommended me by H. C. Orsted, 
and got a room, where the sun shone upon my bed to show 
me that there also may be sunshine in London ; it was a 
little reddish-yellow, as if reflected through the glass of a beer 
bottle ; but when the sun had set, the air was clear and the 
stars sparkled down upon the streets, radiant with gas-light, 
and where the crowd always moved, rushed, or quietly 
hummed. Very tired I fell asleep, not yet having seen any 
acquaintance. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



y -93 



I had arrived here without any letter of recommendation ; 
the only one at home whom I had asked for one was a man 
of high rank, who had English connections, through whom I 
might be able to get a glance into the high life of London, but 
he did not send me any. 

"You need no letter of recommendation here," said our 
Danish Ambassador, Count Reventlow, upon whom I made 
a call next morning ; " you are known and recommended 
in England by your writings. This very night a little select 
party is given by Lord Palmerston; I will write to Lady 
Palmerston that you are here, and I have no doubt that you 
will get an invitation ! " 

A few hours after I did receive one, and together with 
Count Reventlow I went to the house in his carriage. The 
highest nobility of England was gathered here : ladies in the 
richest toilets, silk and lace, sparkling diamonds, and beautiful 
bouquets of flowers. Lord Palmerston as well as Lady Palmer- 
ston received me very kindly ; and when the young Duke of 
Weimar, who was here with his young wife, kindly greeted 
me and introduced me to the Duchess of Suffolk, who I be- 
lieve spoke very civilly of my " Improvisatore, — " The first 
book on Italy ! " as she was pleased to express herself, — I 
was soon surrounded by the noble ladies of England, who all 
knew about the Danish poet, — knew " The Top and the Ball," 
" The Ugly Duckling," etc. Many generous words were said 
to me. I seemed to be no longer a stranger. The Duke of 
Cambridge spoke to me about Christian VIII. ; the Prussian 
Ambassador, Bunsen, who at an earlier time had shown the 
Danes at Rome so many favors, was a friend of Reventlow, 
and met me very kindly. Many presented me their cards, and 
most of them offered me invitations. " You have to-night," said 
Count Reventlow, " made a jump into high life, which many 
would have required years to come into ! Don't be too modest ; 
here one must advance boldly in order to get ahead ! " and 
now with that gentleman's quick humor he continued in Dan- 
ish, which was not understood by any of the company, '*' To- 
morrow we will look over the cards and choose the best one ! 
Now you have talked quite enough with him ; there you see 
another, with whom it will be more advantage to you to be 



294 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

acquainted ; at this gentleman's house you will find a good 
table ; with that, very select society ! " and so he rattled on, 
At last I was so weary of moving over the polished floor, of 
the mental exercise of clambering over different tongues, that 
I did not know what I was about ; the heat was so exhaust- 
ing that I was obliged to break away and go out on the corri- 
dor, to draw breath and to get a little rest, at least to lean up 
against the balustrade. As that evening so were all the 
others for three whole weeks ; it was in the season, the warm 
time of summer society, which we only know in the winter. 
I was invited every day out to dinner, for the evening, and 
after that to balls in the night ; there was a crowd every- 
where that I went, in the saloons and on the staircases, and 
as I was engaged for a week ahead, I was obliged also to go 
out to breakfast. I could not stand it any longer ; it was 
just one long night and day for almost three weeks ; I have 
therefore been able to keep only a few moments and scattered 
incidents of that time clearly in my memory. Almost every- 
where the same principal figures were presented, varying in 
gold, satin, laces, and flowers. In the decoration of rooms 
roses were especially employed. Windows, tables, staircases, 
and niches were covered with roses ; they were always placed 
in water, either in glasses, cups, or vases, but without looking 
closely the vessels could not be perceived ; to the eye they 
formed entire carpets, fragrant and fresh. 

I lived, as I have mentioned, at Leicester Square, in the 
Hotel de Sabloniere, where also H. C. Orsted had lived, and 
who had recommended it to me ; but that lodging, said Count 
Reventlow, was not fashionable enough, and here all must 
follow the fashion ; he advised me not to say that I lived at 
Leicester Square ; that would be, he said, as if a stranger in 
Copenhagen were to mention in a fashionable society, " I live 
in Peter Madsen's Lane ; " I was to give out that I lived with 
him. And yet I lived near by Piccadilly, in a large square 
where the marble statue of the Earl of Leicester stood among 
green trees outside my windows ; six or eight years ago it had 
been fashionable to live here, but now it was not so. 

The Chevalier Bunsen, Count Reventlow, and several of the 
ambassadors called on me here, but that was according to 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



295 



etiquette. In England every one must be obedient to eti- 
quette ; even the Queen is dependent on it at her own house. 
They told me that one day, when taking a walk out in one of 
the splendid parks, and wishing perhaps to stay there a little 
longer, she was obliged to return home because the dinner- 
hour was precisely eight o'clock ; otherwise all England would 
have found fault with her. In this land of freedom one almost 
dies by etiquette ; but that is not worth mentioning where so 
much that is excellent is to be found. Here we find a nation, 
which in our time, perhaps, is the only religious one ; here is 
an esteem for good manners, here is morality ; we must not 
dwell upon single excrescences and offshoots, which always 
are to be found in a great city. London is the city of polite- 
ness, and the police themselves set good examples. In the 
streets you need only address one of the policemen, and he 
will immediately accompany and direct you ; in the stores you 
will always be answered in the kindest way. As to London's 
heavy air and coal-smoke, it has been exaggerated ; it certainly 
is the case in some of its densely populated old quarters, but 
its most growing part is airy and free, as much so as in Paris. 
I have seen in London many beautiful sunny days and many 
star-light nights. 

It is, moreover, very difficult for a foreigner to give a true 
and faithful picture of a country and a city after a short stay 
there. One proves that best by reading other authors' de- 
scriptions and conceptions of our own home, where we are 
familiar with and know everything so well The tourist writes 
down what some individuals relate, conceived from their spe- 
cial point of view, and he himself only looks through travelling 
life's wavering spectacles ; he paints landscapes and figures 
as on a railway flight, and the details are not even so true as 
there. 

London is to me the city of cities, Rome only excepted. 
Rome is a microcosm, a bass-relief of the day. As for the 
rest, the topic of the day was here Jenny Lind, and only 
Jenny Lind. In order to avoid somewhat too frequent calls, 
and to live in the freshest air of London, she had hired a 
house at Old Brompton ; that was all the information I could 
get at the hotel, where I had at once inquired after her. 



296 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

That I might find the place I went directly to the " Italian 
Opera," where she sung. Here also the policeman was my best 
guide 1 he accompanied me to the cashier of the theatre, but 
neither he nor the different porters there would or could give 
me any information. I wrote then upon one of my visiting- 
cards some words to Jenny Lind ; I wrote that I had arrived, 
and told her where I lived, and asked her to give me her ad- 
dress without delay, and the next morning I received a joyful 
and kind letter " To her brother." I found out upon the map 
where Old Brompton was, took my place in an omnibus ; the 
conductor told me how far I was to go with him, and where I 
should turn to find the house of " The Swedish Nightingale." 
as he smilingly called her. A few days after I happened to 
go with the same omnibus ; I did not know the conductor 
again, but he knew me, and asked whether I had found " The 
Nightingale, Jenny Lind." 

It was far out in a corner of the city where she lived, in a 
nice little house, with a low hedge shutting out the street. A 
crowd of people was standing without, and looking at the 
house in order to get a glimpse of Jenny Lind ; to-day they 
had a chance, for on the ringing of the bell she recognized me 
from the windows, and ran out to the carriage, shook both my 
hands, looked on me with sisterly affection, and forgot the 
people around who crowded about. We hastened into the 
house, which was pretty, rich, and cozy. It opened on a little 
garden with a large grass-plat and many leafy- trees ; a little, 
brown, shaggy dog trotted about, jumped up on the lap of his 
mistress and was patted and caressed. 

Elegantly bound books lay on the table. She showed me 
my " True Story of my Life," which Mary Howitt had dedi- 
cated to her ; a large sheet lay on the table, it was a carica- 
ture of Jenny Lind, a great nightingale with a girlish face ; 
Lumley was shown putting sovereigns on the tail to get her to 
sing. 

We talked of home, of Bournonville and Collin, and I told 
her of the Dutch feast given me, how they there had drunk the 
health of old Collin ; she clapped her hands and cried, " Was 
not that good ! " She promised me then that I should have 
a ticket to the opera every time she sang, but that I must not 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 297 

speak of paying for it, because, she said, the tickets are fool- 
ishly dear. " Let me there sing for you ; you may afterward 
at home read some of your stories to me again ! " My many 
invitations allowed me to make use of her ticket twice only. 
The first time I saw her in La Somnambula which certainly is 
her best part. The virginal purity that shines through her 
imparts a kind of holiness to the stage. The manner with 
which, in the sleep-walking scene in the last act, she takes the 
rose from her breast, holds it up in the air, and involuntarily 
drops it, had a charm, a beauty so strangely touching, that 
tears came into my eyes. There was also such applause and 
excitement as I have never seen even among the violent 
Neapolitans ; flowers rained down upon her, and everything 
was like a great festival. Every one knows how highly dressed 
they are in the great opera at London • the gentlemen on the 
floor and in the first range of boxes come with white cravats \ 
the ladies are dressed as for a ball, each of them with a large 
bouquet in her hand. 

The Queen and Prince Albert were present, as also the 
hereditary Grand Duke of Weimar and his wife. The Italian 
language sounded strangely from Jenny Lind's lips, and yet 
they said that she was more correct than many Italians ; it was 
the same in German ; still the spirit was the same as when she 
sang in her beautiful vernacular tongue. The composer Verdi 
had for that season and for Jenny Lind composed a new opera, 
" I Masnadieri," the text after Schiller's " The Robbers." I 
heard it once, but even Jenny Lind's acting and singing could 
not give life to that hum-drum poetry. A7iielia > s part is closed 
by her being at last killed in the wood by Care the Moor, 
while the band of robbers is surrounded. Lablache played 
the old Moor, and it was indeed highly comical to see the 
robust, fleshy man coming out from the tower saying that he 
was almost dead with hunger ; the whole house laughed when 
he said it. That was at the same representation that I saw 
for the first time the renowned dancer Taglioni ; she danced 
in "Les Pas des Deesses." Before she appeared I felt a 
throbbing of my heart, which I always have when my expecta- 
tion is raised for something excellent and grand. 

She appeared as an old, little, sturdy, and quite pretty 



298 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

woman ; she would have been a nice lady in a saloon, but as a 
young goddess — fuimus Troes / I sat cool and indifferent at 
the graceful dancing of that old lady. There must be youth, 
and that I found in Cerrito ! it was something incomparably 
beautiful ; it was a swallow-flight in the dance, a sport of 
Psyche, a flight ! that one did not see in Taglioni ; fuimus 
Troes / The Danish dancer, Miss Grahn, was also in London, 
and was highly admired of all, but she had a sore foot and 
did not dance. One evening when " Elisire d'Amore " was 
given, she sent for me to see her in her little box, where she 
disclosed for me with liveliness and fun the world behind the 
scenes, and gave me an account of each of the actors. She 
did not seem to belong to the admirers of Jenny Lind. Of 
course she had to suffer some opposition in the midst of the 
applause of the day, but that is always the case with whatever 
is great and good. Jenny Lind's presentation of Norma 
as the afflicted, noble woman, which had deeply affected me, 
dicl not generally please the English, who earlier, through Grisi 
and her imitators, had conceived her as a passionate Medea. 
Mr. Planche, the author of " Oberon " and of several other 
opera texts, was a zealous opponent; but those small blows 
were lost in the glory of her popularity, and she remained 
happy in her quiet home under the shadowy trees. One day 
I came there fatigued and exhausted by continual invitations 
and overpowering attention. 

" Yes, now you have found what it is to be at a perpetual 
feast ! " said she ; " one is so worn out ! and how empty, how 
infinitely empty all those phrases one hears said ! " 

When I afterward rode home in her carriage, people thronged 
close up to it, believing that it was Jenny Lind, and they 
perceived only me, who was to them a strange, unknown 
gentleman. Old Mr. Hambro had through me invited the 
artist to a dinee at his country-house, but I could not induce 
her to accept, not even when it was left to her to fix the 
number of guests, yes, even to be alone with the old gentleman 
and me. She would not change her manner of living, but 
allowed me to take the honorable old gentleman out with me 
to see her ; that I did, and both agreed prettily together ; they 
even talked of money affairs, and laughed at me, who under- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 299 

stood so little about those things, and how to change my 
talent into gold. 

The young sculptor, Mr. Durham, wished to model her 
bust and mine \ neither of us had time to give him a sufficient 
number of sittings. Meanwhile the young man, by a few 
words from me, got permission to come for half an hour to 
her, and remodel the clay which he had already formed from 
what he had seen of her in the theatre. I allowed him an hour 
for myself, and in that time he produced, considering the brief 
space allowed him, a remarkably good bust. This bust, as 
also that of Jenny Lind, have both been at the exhibition in 
Copenhagen, but have been there criticised too severely ; for 
there was likeness and a spiritual conception in both of them, 
and I should like to know if any Danish artist in so short a 
time could have been able to do better than Durham did. 
After that time years elapsed before I again saw Jenny Lind ; 
she left England, as we know, in triumph and popular esteem, 
and went to America. 

Count Reventlow presented me to Lady Morgan. He had 
already told me a few days before that the aged lady expected 
us, but that she had postponed our visit to a fixed day, be- 
cause, as he confided to me, she knew me very well by name, 
but had never read anything of mine, and now in a hurry was 
making acquaintance with " The Improvisatore," the stories, 
etc. She lived in a house with small decorated rooms, filled 
with objects of antiquity ; there was a French look about every- 
thing, and especially about the old lady, who was all life and 
merriment ; she spoke French, was entirely French herself, 
and dreadfully painted. She quoted from my books, which I 
knew she had read in a great hurry, but she did it always with 
the greatest politeness toward me. There hung on the wall 
a pencil drawing by Thorwaldsen 5 it was that of " Night and 
Day," as we have them in bass-reliefs, and was given her at 
Rome. She told me that she would invite in my honor all 
the renowned authors of London ; that I should learn to know 
Dickens, Bulwer, etc. ; and the same evening she accompanied 
me to Lady Duff Gordon's, who had translated my story, " The 
Little Mermaid," and is a daughter of the authoress Jane 
Austen : here I might expect to meet with many celebrities, 



300 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

and that was the case ; but I was received in a far more select 
circle by another English authoress, to whom I was introduced 
by my friend Jordan, the editor of " The Literary Gazette ; " 
that was at the house of Lady Blessington. 

She lived a little out of London, in her mansion Gore 
House. She was a blooming, somewhat corpulent lady, very 
elegantly dressed, and with sparkling rings on her fingers. 
She received me as kindly as if I were an old acquaintance, 
shook my hand, spoke of " A Poet's Bazaar," and said that 
there was a treasure of poetry in it, which was not to be found 
in many other books, and that she had mentioned it in her last 
novel. We walked out on the great garden balcony, that was 
richly overgrown with ivy and vines; a big blackbird from 
Van Dieman's Land and two white parrots balanced here : the 
blackbird was caressed and must warble for me. Under the 
balcony grew many roses ; there was a beautiful green sward, 
and two pretty, drooping willows ; a little further away grazed 
upon a green little meadow, only for show, a cow, — all looked 
so country like. We wandered together down into the garden. 
She was the first English lady whom I understood very well, 
but she spoke also intentionally very slowly, held me by the 
wrist, looked at me continually at every word, and then asked 
me if I understood her ; she told me of an idea for a book 
which she wished me to write, — an idea, which seemed to her 
to belong to me. It was of a poor man, who only possessed 
hope, and of a rich man, who possessed the real but not hope ; 
and then it was to be shown how unhappy he was, while the 
poor man was happy. 

Her son-in-law, Count d'Orsay, the most elegant gentle- 
man in London, entered, who, I was told, decided by his toilet 
the English fashion. We went into his studio, where there 
stood in clay a bust of Lady Blessington, nearly finished, made 
by him, as also an oil painting of Jenny Lind as Nortnh, 
painted by Count d'Orsay from memory. He seemed to be a 
very talented man, and he was also very polite and amiable. 

Lady Blessington now conducted me through all her rooms ; 
the bust or portrait of Napoleon was to be seen in almost all 
of them. At last we reached her work-room ; many open 
books lay on the table, and, as I could see, all concerning 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



30 1 



Anne Boleyn. We spoke of poetry and art, and she hinted at 
my works in an appreciative way, saying that she found in 
them much of that quality which had captivated her in Jenny 
Lind, — a certain heartiness of nature. She talked about that 
artist's representations of La Somnambula, the purity that was 
manifested, and the tears stood in her eyes while she spoke 
of it. Two young girls, her daughters I believe, presented 
me a handful of beautiful roses ; Jordan and I were invited 
to come there some day to dinner, and she would then make 
me acquainted with Dickens and Bulwer. Coming at the 
appointed time I found the whole house in festive splendor. 
Waiters in silk stockings with powdered hair stood in the cor- 
ridor ; Lady Blessington herself was in splendor and mag- 
nificence, but with the same mild and radiant face ; she told 
me that Bulwer could not come ; he lived at that time but for 
the elections, and was out getting votes. She did not seem 
to like that poet much as a man, and said also that he was 
very repulsive by reason of his vanity, and besides rather deaf 
and very difficult to converse with. I do not know whether 
she looked through a false glass, but otherwise she spoke 
warmly, and that did all, of Charles Dickens ; he also had 
promised to come and I should learn to know him. 

I was just writing my name and a few words in the front of 
" The True Story of my Life," when Dickens entered, youthful 
and handsome, with a wise and kind expression, and long ; 
beautiful hair, falling down on both sides. We shook hands, 
looked into each other's eyes, spoke and understood one an- 
other. We stepped out on the balcony. It was happiness to 
me to see and speak with the one of England's living writers 
whom I loved most, and tears came into my eyes. Dickens 
understood my love and admiration. Among my stories he 
mentioned " The Little Mermaid," which had been translated 
by Lady Duff Gordon, in " Bentley's Magazine " ; he knew 
also "The Bazaar," and "The Improvisatore." I was placed 
near Dickens at the table, only Lady Blessington's young 
daughter sat between us. He drank a glass of wine with me, 
as did also the Duke of Wellington, then Marquis of Douro. 
At the end of the table was a great picture, a full-length 
portrait of Napoleon, strongly lighted by many lamps. Here 



302 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

was the poet Milnes, here the Postmaster-general of England, 
authors, journalists, and noblemen, but for me Dickens was 
the first I saw a great circle of rich and honorable men : 
the party consisted wholly of men, except the hostess' two 
daughters. No others came to Lady Blessington's house, and 
these frequented it without restraint. Count Reventlow and 
several others hinted to me that I must not tell in the great 
saloons of my going to Lady Blessington's, because it was not 
fashionable — she was frowned upon. I don't know whether the 
reason they gave was true, but they told me that her son-in-law, 
Count d'Orsay, liked better his mother-in-law's than his wife's 
company, and that the young wife, who was, to be sure, a step- 
daughter of Lady Blessington, had for that reason left hus- 
band, house, and home, and lived with a lady friend of hers, 
while her husband stayed behind. 

Lady Blessington made a very pleasant impression upon 
me ; and in the great circles, when the noble ladies asked me 
where I had been, I could not abstain from naming Lady Bles- 
sington. Then there always was a pause ; I asked the reason 
why I was not to go there, or what was the matter with her, 
but I always got a short answer that she was not a good 
woman. One day I spoke of her personal amiability, and of 
her humor, and related how she was affected when talking 
of Jenny Lind's representation of La Somnambula and the 
womanly nobility she manifested ; I had seen her shed tears 
over it ! " The creature ! " exclaimed an old lady indig- 
nantly ; " Lady Blessington weeping at the innocence of Jenny 
Lind ! " A few years after I read of Lady Blessington's death 
at Paris. Count d'Orsay sat by her death-bed. 

Among other literary ladies in London I must mentiQn the 
Quakeress Mary Howitt who had introduced and made me 
known in England by her translation of my "Improvisa- 
tore." Her husband, William Howitt, is also known as an 
author ; they published at that time in London " Howitt's 
Journal ; " in the number which appeared just the week before 
my arrival, was given a kind of welcome for me, as also my 
portrait, which was to be seen in several shop windows. The 
first day I arrived I became aware of it, and entered a little 
shop to buy it. " Has it really any likeness to Mr. Ander- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 303 

sen ? " I asked the woman who sold it. " Yes, indeed, a strik- 
ing likeness ! " said she ; " you will know him by the pic- 
ture ! " but she did not know me, though she talked a long 
time of the likeness. " The True Story of my Life," a transla- 
tion of " Das Marchen meines Lebens," had recently been pub- 
lished by the Longmans ; the book was dedicated to Jenny 
Lind, and was also afterward published in America. Imme- 
diately after my arrival Mary Howitt and her daughter visited 
me, and invited me out to Clapton. I rode out there in an 
omnibus, which was loaded outside and within ; the distance 
was certainly more than two Danish miles, and I thought that 
the journey would never come to an end. The Howitts lived 
very comfortably; there were paintings about them, and 
statues, and a nice little garden. All received me very kindly. 
A few houses from there lived Freiligrath, the German poet, 
whom I had once visited at St. Goar on the Rhine, where he 
sung his warm, picturesque songs. The King of Prussia had 
granted him an annuity, which he refused, when Herwegh 
mocked at him as a pensionary poet ; afterward he wrote 
songs of liberty, went to Switzerland, then to England, where 
he supported his family by working in a counting room. 

I met him one day in London in the crowd ; he knew me 
but I did not know him, because' he had shaved off the thick 
black beard he used to wear. " Do you not know me ? " said 
he, and laughed ; "I am Freiligrath ! " and drawing me out 
of the crowd toward a door, he .said in joke, " You won't 
speak to me in the crowd of people, you, friend of kings ! " 
The little room looked friendly, my portrait hung on the wall ; 
the painter Hartmann, who had painted it once at Graven- 
stein, entered the room ; just then we talked about the Rhine 
and of poetry, but I was suffering from London life and from 
the excursion out here \ I trusted meanwhile that it would be 
a cool evening, and took again a place on the omnibus, but 
before I was well out of Clapton all my limbs gave way, 1 
felt very sick, and as weak as when at Naples ; I came near 
fainting, and the omnibus every moment grew more thronged 
and warm. On the top it was full ; booted legs hung down 
before the open windows. 

I was several times about to say to the conductor : " Carry 



304 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

me into a house, where I can stop, for I cannot hold up any 
longer here." The perspiration poured out of every pore. 
It was dreadful ! we moved very slowly, and at last it seemed 
to me as if everything about me was becoming indistinct. 
Arriving finally at the Bank, I took a cab, and now, sitting 
alone, and with better air, I recovered and reached home, 
but I have seldom taken a trip more painful than that from 
Clapton. 

Meanwhile I had promised to go out there again and stay 
a couple of days ; the length of the stay encouraged me to 
undertake again a similar journey in an omnibus. I had 
expected to find quiet and enjoyable days there, but friends 
often endeavor to make one have too good a time. They 
always will take one from what is near by to what is further 
away, and thus the very first day after dinner we started in a 
single-horse carriage, five persons within and three without, for 
a country-house of an old maiden lady ; the heat was oppres- 
sive, and the whole trip was just fit for a chapter of one of 
Dickens's novels. 

At last we reached the old lady's, who no doubt was of the 
literary kind. In the middle of the grass-plat before the 
house were a crowd of children playing, that looked like a 
school of boarders ; they danced round a large beech-tree, and 
all were adorned with wreaths of beech or ivy on their heads ; 
they sang and ran about. They were called together, and 
were told that I was the very Hans Christian Andersen who 
had written the stories they knew, and all thronged round me 
and shook my hand, then ran away again, singing, to the green 
spot. Round about were beautiful hills and large groves, 
which threw upon the ground picturesque shadows. I looked 
upon it all from a hot bower, where we were placed, in the 
little garden. A deaf authoress came who wrote political 
things, and many poets I never had heard of. I became 
more and more exhausted, and was at last obliged to seek 
rest ; the whole of the afternoon I spent lying quietly in a 
room by myself unable to move. 

At sunset the air was better, and I was glad that I could 
again take breath. On our way home to Clapton we saw 
London illuminated before us like a transparent gigantic 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 305 

plan. In fiery outlines, formed by the many gas-lamps, we 
perceived different winding streets \ some of them reached 
far out toward the distant horizon, a phosphoric ocean with 
thousands of fire-flames. The next day I was again in 
London. 

I have seen "high life" and "poverty ;" these are the two 
poles of my memory. I saw Poverty personified in a pale, 
famishing girl, with worn-out, miserable clothes, hiding her- 
self in the corner of an omnibus. I saw Misery, and yet it 
said not a word in all its pitifulness : that was forbidden. I 
remember those beggars, men and women, carrying upon the 
breast a large piece of pasteboard with these words written : 
" I am starving ! Mercy! " They dare not pronounce it, they 
are not allowed to ask alms, and so they glide by like shad- 
ows. They place themselves before a person and gaze at 
him with hungry and sad expressions on their pale, pinched 
faces. Standing outside cafes and confectionaries, they choose 
one among the guests whom they continually fix with a glance, 
— O such a glance as misery can show. She points at her 
sick child and at the written piece of paper upon her breast, 
where we read : " I have not eaten these two days." I saw 
many of them, and they told me that in the quarter of the 
city where I lived there were but few of them, and in the 
rich quarters none at all ; those quarters were shut out from 
that poor Pariah-class. 

In London everybody is industrious, the beggar among them ; 
everything depends on who can best draw attention to himself, 
and I saw an arrangement by which this was fully accomplished. 
In the middle of the street-gutter stood a cleanly dressed man 
and five children, — who if they stood in the street or on the 
sidewalk would have stopped the passage, — one child smaller 
than the other, all in mourning, with a long mourning veil 
streaming from hat and cap, all cleanly dressed, and each of 
them holding a bunch of matches for sale ; of course they 
dared not beg. Another far more honorable and very profit- 
able industry is that of a street-sweeper, and such a one, with 
his broom, is to be seen almost at any corner ; he sweeps 
continually the crossing from street to street, or keeps clean 
a certain portion of the sidewalk, and whoever will may give 



306 the story of my life. 

him a penny ; there are quarters where in the course of the 
week they amass quite a little fortune. I believe it is Bulwer 
who has told of such a man, whose profession was not known 
to anybody in his quarter, how he became engaged and mar- 
ried to a young girl of the nobility ; he was away from his 
house every day, nobody knew where, and every Saturday he 
brought home shining silver pieces. The family was anxious 
and restless, they believed him a counterfeiter, watched him, 
and discovered then that he was a street sweeper. 1 

It was the life of London I saw. I got an insight of " high 
life " in the rich saloons and in the crowds of the streets, the 
plaudits in the theatres, and, what is a part of the nation, the 
churches : it is in Italy that churches must be seen. The 
cathedral of St. Paul in London looks more impressive from 
without than from within ; it is little in comparison with the 
cathedral of St. Peter, and is not so solemn as that of Maria 
Maggiore or Del Angeli at Rome. It made the impression on 
me of a magnificent Pantheon with rich marble monuments. 
Everything, every statue, was covered with a black crape ; it 
was a veil of coal smoke, which penetrated here and gave to 
every statue a certain silky cover. Upon Nelson's monu- 
ment stands a young figure, which stretches the hand toward 
one of the four inscriptions directing toward " Copenhagen." 
As a Dane I had a feeling as if he were going to efface that 
triumph. 

Westminster made a much grander impression on me ; it is 
a truly great church both in exterior and in interior ! It is a 
pity that they have for English comfort here built in the inte- 
rior of the great church a smaller one, where divine service 
is performed. The first time I entered Westminster Abbey 
through a side door, I stood in " the Poet's Corner," and the 
first monument I caught sight of was that of Shakespeare. I 
forgot for the moment that his dust did not repose here : I was 
filled with devotion and seriousness, and I leaned my head 
against the cold marble ; at one side is the monument or tomb 
of Thomson, at the left that of Southey, and under the large 
stones of the floor repose Garrick, Sheridan, and Samuel 
Johnson. We know that the clergy have not given permission 

1 Andersen has fallen upon a humorous story of Thackeray's. — Ed. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 307 

to have Byron's monument placed here. " I missed it there ! " 
said I one evening to an English Bishop, and spoke as if I 
did not know the reason. " How can it be that a monument 
made by Thorwaldsen for one of the greatest poets of England 
should not be placed there ? " — " It has an excellent place 
elsewhere ! " he answered evasively. 

Among many other monuments in Westminster for kings 
and great men, there was one before which I always stopped, 
perceiving in one of the marble figures my own face, so won- 
derfully like and so much better than any sculptor or painter 
had been able to do it. Yes, it was strikingly like my bust. 
A number of strangers, who were accidentally standing there 
one day when I also was there, looked at it and at me, started 
and gazed astonishingly at me \ it was for them as if the no- 
ble lord in the marble wandered alive in flesh and blood in 
my shape through the aisles of the church. 

I have already mentioned before that it was just at the time 
of election I was at London, and that was the reason I could 
not meet Bulwer. Election time with all its arrangements and 
extravagances, which we in our country will certainly come to 
know, is full of interest and variety the first time one sees it. 
In several squares and streets were erected stands for speak- 
ers. Men went through the crowds with election-lists upon 
their breast and back, in order that the names might be read \ 
flags waved, and were carried about in procession ; from car- 
riages filled with electors, handkerchiefs were shaken, and big 
flags with inscriptions. Many poorly dressed people, often 
with very showily dressed servants, came driving in elegant car- 
riages, shouting and singing ; it was as if the lords had sent 
for their most humble servants, as if for that old pagan feast 
where the masters served their own slaves. Round the stand 
is a thronging, surging crowd ; here flew 7 sometimes rotten 
oranges, yes, even carrion at the heads of the speakers. I 
saw in one of the more elegant districts of London two young, 
well-dressed men approaching the stand, but while one of 
them tried to mount, some one ran up, crushed both of their 
hats over their eyes, and turned them round ; so they were 
pushed and tossed by the whole mass of people from one to 
another, away from the stand, yes, even out of the street, so 



308 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

that they were not allowed to appear at all. In the vicinity 
of London, several miles out, where I drove in a carnage a 
couple of times, the excitement of the hour was still more 
noticeable. I saw the different election parties coming in 
great processions with large flags before them and the most 
fierce inscriptions on them. The larger part were for Mr. 
Hodges ; his name was especially seen ; one party had dark- 
blue flags, the other light-blue, and inscriptions such as, 
" Hodges forever ! " " Rothschild, the poor man's friend ! " 
etc. Bands of music accompanied each procession, and were 
followed by a motley crowd. An old, sick, palsied man was 
carried in a wheelbarrow to give his suffrage. The collecting 
of ballots took place at the market-place, which for the occa- 
sion was like a market-day, with booths and canvas tents, 
where all things were exhibited for sale ; a whole theatre was 
erected, and I saw them carry wooden scenes across the 
street to that great Thespis-hall. What was especially poetical 
was the neat peddler wagons, whole houses on wheels, — the 
entire household upon one car, which was hung on two wheels 
and drawn by one horse. It made a complete house with roof 
and chimney ; it was divided in two compartments, of which 
the hindmost formed a kind of room or kitchen with plates 
and tin pans ; the wife sat before the door spinning upon her 
distaff; a little red curtain hung before the open window. 
The husband and son were on horseback, but at the same 
time guided the horse before the wandering house. 

The present Baron Hambro had hired a country-house out 
of the city of Edinburgh, at Stirling, where he spent the sum- 
mer with his wife, who was an invalid and was trying salt-water 
bathing. He wrote to his father that he should induce me to 
visit him, as I had many friends in Scotland who would be 
very glad to see me. I was afraid to undertake the long' jour- 
ney, as I did not speak English well enough to venture alone 
so far up in the country. A renewed invitation and a letter 
to his father asking him to accompany me, decided me to go, 
and in company with the elder Hambro I now started on the 
railway from London to Edinburgh. We divided our journey 
into two days and spent the night at York. We went by an 
express train at flying speed, and without as much stopping 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



309 



as would allow us to alight a single time during the whole 
journey. 

The old song runs : " Through valleys, over mountains ; " 
here we might sing : " Over valleys, through mountains ! We 
flew like the Wild Huntsman. The landscape rolled around 
us and under us ; the country resembled that about Funen 
and Als : sometimes we passed through the earth, through 
endless, dark tunnels, where for ventilation they had made 
apertures over our head ; we met many trains, which whistled 
by like rockets, and new views of more mountainous charac- 
ter appeared, interspersed with tile-kilns with fire flaming out 
of the chimneys. At the railway station in York a gentleman 
saluted me and presented to me two ladies : it was the pres- 
ent Duke of Wellington, who knew me, and one of them was 
his bride. We passed the night in the " Black Swan " at 
York ; I saw the old city with its beautiful cathedral ; I had 
never before seen such picturesque houses with carved work 
in gable-ends and balconies as were here. The swallows flew 
whistling through the street in great flocks, and my own bird, 
the stork, hovered over my head. The following day we went 
by the railway train to Newcastle, situated in a depth of smoke 
and steam. The viaduct and bridge near the town were not 
yet finished, and we were therefore obliged to go in an omni- 
bus through the city to the railway beyond the town. All 
was bustle and in disorder here. 

In England they do not give one tickets for baggage, as in 
other countries of Europe, and the travellers themselves must 
take care of their things ; at those places where the luggage 
had to be shifted it was certainly a real plague. This day the 
crowd here was very great ; there were many travellers, and 
early the same morning an express train of gentlemen had 
just started, who, with their hounds, were going a-hunting in 
Scotland. All the first-class carriages were already taken up, 
and so we were placed in second-class carriages, which are 
as bad as they can be, with wooden seats and wooden window- 
blinds, used only for fourth-class carriages in other countries. 

The railway, passing over two deep valleys, was not yet 
finished, but still so far completed that we could pass over it. 
The timber- work of the bridges was placed upon mighty col- 



3IO THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

umns, and on this the rails were laid, but for the eye it was 
as if all wood-work was wanting, — as if we passed over the 
railings of a bridge ; we looked through the open frame-work 
down into the deep below us, where people were working on 
the banks of the river. We arrived at last at the river which 
marks the boundary between England and Scotland; the 
realm of Walter Scott and Burns lay before us. Here the 
country was more mountainous ; we saw the sea ; the railway 
runs along the shore ; many boats were lying here, and at last 
we reached Edinburgh. The city is divided by a narrow, deep 
valley, like an immense dried up trench, into the old and new 
town, and down in the valley the railway from London to 
Glasgow passes. New Edinburgh has straight streets, and 
modern but tedious looking buildings ; one street crosses an- 
other or runs parallel with it ; the city possesses no other 
Scottish characteristic than that it has, like the Scottish plaid, 
its regular quadrangles ; but old Edinburgh is a city most 
picturesquely magnificent, so old-looking, so gloomy and pe- 
culiar. The houses, which have in the main street two of 
three stories, have their rears on that deep cut which divides 
the old and new city, and here the same houses have from 
nine to eleven stories. When in the evening the lights are 
burning in the different rooms, story above story, and the 
intense gas-lights are beaming over the roofs of the other 
houses in the lofty streets, then it produces a peculiar, almost 
gala aspect, with lights high up in the air, and may be seen 
from the railway carriages, which pass at the base of Edin- 
burgh. I arrived here with old Hambro toward evening ; the 
son met us with his carriage at the railway terminus ; the 
reception was a bright one, and soon we went on a gallop out 
of the city to their country-house, " Mount Trinity," where I 
was now to find in Hambro's family a home in Walter Scott's 
country, and Burns's mountains ! Many letters that had ar- 
rived for me, lay before me as a bouquet ; there was an air 
of elegance and comfort, such as one often finds in an English 
house ; I saw around me dear, kind people, who were most 
hospitably disposed. It was one of my life's happiest even- 
ings. Our house was situated in the midst of a garden, sur- 
rounded with low walls ; the railway from Edinburgh out to 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 3 I I 

the bay of the sea passed near by. The fishing-place here is 
a considerable town, but very like those of the Zealand fishers. 
The Scotch women's dresses were still more picturesque than 
the Danish ; a broad-striped skirt very neatly tucked up show- 
ing the variegated petticoat. 

The next day I already felt as if I had lived a long time in 
the family; where we know that we are dear and welcome, 
there we soon feel as at home. I found here lively, amiable 
children whom the old grandfather loved tenderly. I could 
again enjoy a happy family life. The custom and manners of 
the house were in all respects quite English. In the evening 
the family and servants were gathered for devotions, a prayer 
was said, a chapter from the Bible was read. I saw the same 
thing afterward in all the families where I came ; and it made 
a beautiful and good impression on me. Every day was rich 
with variety for me. The first forenoon there began the 
making of calls and seeing and knowing all around me. I 
was certainly in great want of bodily rest, but how could I get 
it here where there was so much to be done ? 

It was but a few minutes by the railway train to Edinburgh. 
The train stopped before a tunnel under the hill, on the top 
of which several of the new Edinburgh streets are situated. 
Most of the passengers alighted. 

" Are we already there ? " I asked. 

" No, sir," said my guide, as we again were moving, " but 
only a few passengers go farther, because they are afraid that 
the tunnel here is not strong enough \ that the whole street 
on the top may tumble down into the tunnel, and therefore 
most of them prefer to alight here ; I do not think it will 
tumble down while we are going through ! " — and we rushed 
into the long, dark vault — and that time it did not fall down, 
but it was not pleasant at all ; still I always passed through 
it when I visited Edinburgh by railway. 

The view from the new city of the old one is imposing and 
magnificent, and offers a panorama which places Edinburgh, 
as to picturesque groupings, along with Constantinople and 
Stockholm. The long street — we may almost call it a quay, 
if the gap, through which the railway runs may be considered 
as a channel — has the whole panorama of the old city with its 



312 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

castle and Heriot's hospital. Where the city declines toward 
the sea is the mountain, " Arthur's Seat," known from Wal- 
ter Scott's novel, "The Heart of Mid-Lothian." The en- 
tire old city itself is a great commentary upon his power- 
ful writings. Therefore the monument of Walter Scott is 
fittingly placed here, where from the new part of the city the 
panorama of old Edinburgh is seen. The monument has the 
shape of a mighty Gothic tower ; below we see a sitting statue 
of the poet, his dog Maida reposing at his feet, and in the up- 
per arches of the tower are seen the world-renowned characters 
in his writings, Meg Merrilies, the Last Minstrel, and so forth. 
The renowned physician, Dr. Simpson, was my guide in the 
old town. The main street runs along the ridge of a hill ; 
its many side streets are narrow, filthy, and with houses of six 
stories ; the oldest houses seemed to be built of heavy free- 
stone. We are reminded of the mighty buildings of the dirty 
Italian towns. Poverty and misery seemed to peep out of the 
open holes which are used for windows ; rags and tatters were 
put out to dry. There was shown in one of those lanes a 
dark, gloomy, stable-looking house, which once had been 
Edinburgh's notable and only hotel, where kings used to put 
up, and where Samuel Johnson had lived a long while. I saw 
the house where Burke had lived, where the unhappy victims 
were enticed to enter and were suffocated, in order to be sold 
as corpses. In the main street was still to be seen, though 
in a dilapidated condition, Knox's little house, with a piece of 
sculpture representing him speaking from a pulpit. Passing 
by the old prison of Edinburgh, which does not attract atten- 
tion by its exterior, but only by Walter Scott's novel, we 
continued our researches down to Holyrood, which is situated 
in the western outskirts of the city. We saw here a long 
hall with poor portraits, and other rooms, where Charles X. 
had lived. Not until we came to Mary Stuart's sleeping- 
room had Holyrood any interest for me. The hangings 
here showed " The Fall of Phaeton," which she might have 
had always before her eyes, as if it was a prediction of her 
own fate. Into that little room near by was the unhappy 
Rizzio dragged to be murdered. Stains of blood are still to 
be seen on the floor ; on either side was a dark tower-cham- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 313 

ber ; the church was now a beautiful ruin. Ivy, which in 
England and Scotland grows with an abundance I have seen 
only in Italy, covers here the walls of the church ; it looks 
like a great rich carpet, the eternal green winding up round 
windows and columns. Grass and flowers shoot up around 
the tombstones. 

Do not call these pictures of Edinburgh passages from an 
account of a journey; they are really sections of the story 
of my life. They are reflected so vividly in my mind and 
thoughts, that they belong there entirely. 

There w r as a scene connected with this exploration of the 
city and buildings which made a strong impression on me. 
A large company of us visited George Heriot's hospital, — a 
grand building like a palace, whose founder, the goldsmith, 
we all know from Walter Scott's novel, "The Fortunes of 
Nigel." The stranger must bring a written permit, and then 
with his own hand write his name in the book at the entrance* 
I wrote my whole name, " Hans Christian Andersen/' 1 as I 
always have been called in England and Scotland. The old 
porter read it, and followed steadily the elder Hambro, who 
had a good, jovial face and silvery hair, showing him every 
attention, and at last asked him if he were the Danish poet. 

" I have always thought him to have a mild face and vener- 
able hair like yours." 

" No," was the answer, pointing to me, "there is the poet ! " 
" So young ! " exclaimed the old man : " I have read him, 
and the boys have read him also ! It is remarkable to see 
such a man, for they are always so old or else dead, when we 
hear of them ! " They told me of it and I went up to the 
old man and pressed his hand. He and the boys knew very 
well about " The Ugly Duckling " and " The Red Shoes ! " 

It surprised and affected me to be known here, and that I 
had friends among these poor children and those who sur- 
rounded them. I was obliged to step aside to hide my tears ; 
God knows the thoughts of my heart. 

The editor of the " Literary Gazette," Mr. Jerdan, had 
furnished me with a letter to the well-known editor of the 

1 The reader may have noticed that in Denmark his name is always 
written "H. C. Andersen."— Ed. 



3H 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



" Edinburgh Review," Lord Jeffrey, to whom Dickens has 
dedicated his "Cricket on the Hearth." He lived out of 
Edinburgh at his country seat, a truly old, romantic castle, 
whose walls and windows were almost covered with ivy. A 
great fire burned in the fire-place in the large saloon, where the 
family soon was gathered, and where young and old surrounded 
me. Kindly children and grandchildren came forth ; I was 
begged to write my name in different copies of my books 
which they had. We walked round in the great park to a 
point from which we had a fine view of Edinburgh, which 
resembles much that of Athens ; here we saw also a Lycabettos 
and an Acropolis. A couple of days after the whole family re- 
turned my visit ; they came to " Mount Trinity," and as they 
took leave Lord Jeffrey said, " Come soon again to Scotland 
that we may see each other ; I have not many years to live ! " 
Death has already called him ; we did not meet again upon 
earth. 

I met several renowned personages in social life at the 
house of the authoress, Miss Righby, who has visited Copen- 
hagen and written of it ; and at that of the excellent physician 
Mr. Simpson, I came to know the greatest variety of people. 
I met the joval critic Mr. Wilson : he was all life and humor, 
and called me jokingly " brother \ " the most opposite critical 
parties met to show me their good-will. 

The Danish Walter Scott was the name of honor with which 
many unworthily honored me; the authoress Mrs. Crowe 
brought me also into her novel " Susan Hopley," which has 
been translated into Danish. We met at Dr. Simpson's, where, 
at a large party, experiments with ether inhalation were made : 
it was to my mind not a nice thing to see ladies dreaming 
under the intoxication ; they laughed with open, dead. eyes. 
It made me very uncomfortable, and so I said, confess- 
ing that it was an excellent and blessed discovery to be 
used at a painful operation, but not to play with ; that to 
make such experiments was wrong, and a tempting of God ; 
an old venerable man joined with me and said the same. It 
seems that I had by my remark won his heart ; and when a 
few days after we accidentally met on the street, where I had 
just bought as a souvenir of Edinburgh a copy of the Holy 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 315 

Bible in a cheap, beautiful edition, he became still more drawn 
toward me, stroked me on the cheek, and said warm things in 
praise of my pious mind, which I did not deserve. Accident 
had placed me in a light which appeared to him so beautiful. 

Eight days had elapsed and I wished to see a little of the 
Highlands. Hambro, who with his family, was going to a 
bathing-place on the west coast of Scotland, proposed to 
make me their guest on the journey through a part of the 
Highlands, and together with them to see those places which 
Walter Scott has painted for us in " The Lady of the Lake," 
and in " Rob Roy ; " we were not to separate before we came 
to Dumbarton. 

* On the opposite side of the Frith of Forth is situated the 
little town of Kirkcaldy, where on the woody mountain lies a 
magnificent old ruin ; gulls hovered over it, and plunged their 
wings with shrieks into the water. It was at first told me that 
that was the ruin of Ravenswood Castle, but an old gentle- 
man from the town came forward, and explained that that was 
something they had invented to tell strangers, because the 
name had gained more than common interest through " The 
Bride of Lammermoor," but in itself the name of Ravenswood 
was only a fanciful name of the author. The event took 
place further up in Scotland. The name of Ashton, too, was 
a fictitious one, the real family living still, and called Star. 

The ruin with its gloomy prison-vaults, its luxurious ever- 
green, which like a carpet covered the remnants of the walls, 
and grew in clusters down the projecting cliff, was most pic- 
turesque and peculiar, because the sea had just receded at 
the ebbing of the tide. The view of Edinburgh from here 
was very grand and memorable. 

We went on a steamer up the Frith of Forth ; a modern 
minstrel sang Scottish ballads, and accompanied his song by 
playing upon his violin, whith was in very poor tune ; thus we 
approached the Highlands, where the rocks stood like out- 
posts, the fog hovered over them and lifted again ; it was like 
an unexpected arrangement to show us the land of Ossian in 
its true light. Stirling's mighty castle, situated on a rock, 
which appeared like a gigantic figure of stone, thrown out 
from the level plain, crowned the town, whose oldest streets 



316 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

are dirty, badly paved, and in quite the same style as in the 
days of yore. 

It is said that the Scots like to tell stories about the history 
of their country, and out of Darnley's house there came a 
shoemaker up to us in the street, and gave us explanations, 
and anecdotes about Darnley, Mary Stuart, ancient times, and 
the exploits of the Scots. 

The view is really grand from the castle over the historic 
plain where the battle was fought between Edward II. and 
Robert Bruce. We drove to the line where King Edward 
pitched his standard. Posterity has chipped off so many 
pieces of the stones among which it stood, that now, in order 
to prevent it, there has been laid an iron lattice over the stones. 
A poor smithy stands near by ; we entered it : it was here that 
James I. took his refuge, sent for a priest and confessed ; the 
priest hearing that he was the king, stabbed him with a knife 
through the heart, — the smith's wife showed us in her little 
room a corner, where her bed was standing, which was the 
very place of the murder. The whole country had besides a 
Danish appearance, but was poorer and did not look so ad- 
vanced. The linden-tree was here in blossom, while at home it 
already bore its great seed-buttons. 

Travelling in England and Scotland is very expensive, but 
one gets something for his money here ; everything is excel- 
lent, one is well taken care of, and is comfortable, even in the 
smallest village-inns ; at least so it appeared to me. Cal- 
lander is nothing but a village, but we lived here as in a castle 
of a count ; soft carpets were lying on the stairs and along the 
entries, the fire flashed in the grate, and it was needed too, 
though the sun shone and we saw the Scots going with bare 
. knees, as they also do in the winter-time. They wrapped 
themselves up in variegated plaids ; even poor boys wore one, 
if only a rag. % 

Out of my window a river could be seen winding round an 
old hill, like our Giant Mounds ; there was an arched bridge 
covered with the most luxurious evergreen, and near by the 
rocks rose higher ; the Highlands lay before us. Early in the 
morning we set out to reach the steamboat, on Loch Katrine. 
The road grew more and more wild ; the sweet-broom 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 3 1 7 

began to appear in blosom \ we passed by some solitary 
houses built of stone. Loch Katrine, long and narrow, 
with deep, dark water, lay stretched between green moun- 
tain ridges. Heath and brush covered the banks, and as far 
as I could see, the impression was : " If the heaths of Jut- 
land are a sea in calm, the heaths here are a sea in storm ! " 
The great mountain waves are standing dull, but green, with 
brush and grass. At our left lay in the lake a little island 
overgrown with wood ; it was Ellen's Island, from which " the 
Lady of the Lake " had set out in her boat. At the opposite 
side of the lake, at the extreme point where we landed, was a 
poor inn, — a kind of sleeping-place, large and wide, bed set by 
bed, I think almost fifty of them ; the room was low-studded, 
reed mats were on the floor, and the walls pierced by small 
windows ; it looked like a turf-house, where the travellers 
coming over Loch Lomond from " Red Robin's " land could 
get a shelter till the following morning, when the steamer 
passed over Loch Katrine. We did not stay here very long ; 
all the passengers went away, most of them on foot, some 
riding on horseback. Hambro had procured a little carriage 
for me and for his wife, both of us being too weak to make 
the fatiguing foot-journey through the heather. There was no 
regular road, only a foot-path. We drove where the carriage 
best could go, over high places and low, over knolls and stones, 
which served as marks for a future road. The driver walked 
by the side of the horse ; now we rolled down the descent at 
a rapid rate, and then went dragging slowly upward ; it was 
a peculiar pace. Not a house was to be seen ; we did not 
meet a man ; all around was quiet, — dark mountains wrapped 
in mist ; all one and the same. A lonely shepherd, who, 
stiff with cold, was wrapped up in his gray plaid, was the first 
and the only living object we saw for miles. There was a re- 
pose over the whole landscape. Ben Lomond, the highest 
top of the mountain, broke through the fog, and soon we dis- 
covered below us Loch Lomond. The descent to it was 
so steep, although there was a kind of road, that it was a dan- 
gerous thing to come down with a carriage. We had to leave 
it, and on foot we approached the well-furnished steamboat. 
The first I met on board was a countryman, the excellent 



31 8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

geological author of the Island of Moen, Mr. R. Puggaard. 
We were all on board wrapped up in our plaids ; in rain and 
drizzle, in fog and wind the steamboat passed straight up to 
the most northern part of the lake, where a little river flows 
out ; passengers were coming and going ; we were now in the 
midst of the scenery of " Rob Roy," — 

" Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood ! " — 

as it is sung in " The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Here on the 
right, on our return down the lake, we passed Rob Roy's 
cavern. A boat arrived with a large company ; among them 
was a young lady, who looked fixedly and penetratingly at me ; 
a little while after one of the gentlemen came up to me and 
told me that she was a young lady who thought she knew me 
from a portrait, and asked me if I was not the Danish poet, 
Hans Christian Andersen ? " Yes/' I said, and the young lady 
ran toward me, happy and affectionate, and like an old friend 
confidentially pressed my hand, and expressed naturally and 
beautifully her happiness at seeing me. I asked her for one of 
the many mountain flowers she brought with her from Rob Roy's 
rock, and she selected the best and most beautiful one. Her 
father and the whole family surrounded me, and urged me to 
accompany them to their home, to be their guest, but I neither 
could nor would leave my company. It pleased Mr. Hambro 
to see the respect that was shown me, and the attention of all 
the passengers was soon directed to me, and it was astonish- 
ing to see how large a circle of friends I had. There is a 
peculiarly happy feeling, when so far from home, in being so 
well received and made to belong to so many kind people. 

We landed at Balloch, passed by Smollet's monument in 
his little native town, and arrived toward evening at Dumbar- 
ton, a real Scotch town near the Clyde. In the night a storm 
raged with long, gigantic gusts, and it was as if I continually 
heard the rolling of the sea ; there was a constant crash ; the 
windows rattled, a sick cat mewed all the time, it was not pos- 
sible to shut my eyes ; but at dawn it grew calmer, — a sepul- 
chral calm after such a night. It was Sunday, and that signifies 
something in Scotland, where all is at rest ; even railway trains 
v»ere not going, except only that from London to Edinburgh, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 319 

but which does not stop, that it may not give offense to the 
puritan Scots. All the houses were closed, people were staying 
at home, reading the Bible or getting drunk — so I was told. 
It was entirely against my nature to stay in doors a whole day. 
I proposed to take a walk, but I was told that it would not do 
and would give offense. Toward evening, however, we all 
took a promenade out of town, but there was such a silence, 
such a looking out at us from the windows, that we soon turned 
back again. A young Frenchman, with whom I spoke, assured 
me that he had recently been out one Sunday afternoon 
with two Englishmen with a fishing-rod, when an old gentle- 
man passed by and with the most hard and angry words re- 
proached them for their wickedness in diverting themselves on 
Sunday, instead of sitting at home with their Bibles, and they 
ought at least not to offend or excite others ! Such a Sunday 
piety cannot be really true ; where it is, I honor it, but as an in- 
herited habit it becomes a mask, and only occasions hypocrisy, 

I stopped at a little book-store with Hambro to buy books 
and maps. 

" Have you the portrait of the Danish poet, Hans Christian 
Andersen ? " asked Hambro, jestingly. 

"Yes, sir ! " answered the man, and added : " The poet is 
said to be here in Scotland ! " 

" Should you know him ? " The man looked at Hambro, 
took my portrait, looked steadily at him, and said : " It 
must be you ! " so faithful was the picture ! Hambro would 
not let me remain unknown ; and when the good man in 
Dumbarton heard that I was the author, he forgot all, begged 
to know if he might call for his wife and children to come 
and see and talk with me. They came and seemed very 
happy to meet me, and nothing would do but I must shake 
hands all round. I felt and understood that at least my 
name if not I myself was known in Scotland. " Nobody will 
believe it at home ! " said I to Hambro, and added : " But let 
it be so ; it is much more than I deserve ! " I was touched, I 
shed tears, as I always do when I am surprised by anything 
unexpected, or when people see something too much in my 
poetical nature. It all went beyond my most daring youthful 
dreams and expectations ; it often seemed to me that it was 



320 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

only a dream, an empty dream, that I should not dare tell my 
friends when I awoke. In Dumbarton I took leave of Ham- 
bro ; his wife and children went to a sea-side watering-place, 
and I by steamer up the river Clyde to Glasgow ; the parting 
made me very sad, for I had all the time in Scotland lived 
with these dear people. Hambro himself had been as a kind, 
careful brother to me ; whatever he believed could please me 
that I received ; he anticipated my wishes, and his excellent 
wife was full of spirit and feeling ; the children also were trust- 
ful and lively. I have not seen any of them since, and I shall 
see the mother only when I go to God, to whom she went 
from her dear ones here on the earth ; my thoughts fly toward 
her with thankfulness. It is comforting and good to have 
dear friends on the earth and in heaven. 

I had yet a struggle with myself before I left Dumbarton, 
whether I should go back to London, or return home, or pro- 
long my stay in Scotland, thus going further north up to Loch 
Laggan, where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert lived, and 
by whom, as a letter told me, I should be graciously received. 

My stay in Scotland was not such a rest as I had believed ; 
I was not much strengthened, after having spent about three 
weeks here, and no better than when I came up. Besides, 
well informed people, as I believed they were, told me that 
there was no decent inn here for several miles ; that it was 
necessary for me to engage a servant ; in short, that I should 
live in better style than my purse would allow. To write to 
King Christian VI II., who had kindly offered to support me, I 
could not bring myself to do, as I had verbally declined to 
accept that favor, and now weeks would pass before I could 
get an answer. It was real torture ! I wrote a letter home, 
told them how I was, and that I thought it best for me to re- 
turn home, as I also did, but I was obliged thereby to refuse 
various invitations which I received from some of Scotland's 
wealthy nobility to visit their homes. I was deprived of the 
pleasure of seeing Abbotsford, to which place I had a letter 
of introduction. Walter Scott's son-in-law, Lockhart, whose 
guest I had been in London, had received me very kindly and 
affectionately. His daughter, the grandfather's darling, had 
told me of her dear grandfather. At her house I had seen 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 32 I 

relics which had belonged to the great poet, — his magnificent 
life-like picture, as he sits with his dog Maida, gazingf on me. 
Miss Lockhart presented me a fac-simile of him, who once was 
called the Great Unknown. Abbotsford had to be given up, 
as also Loch Laggan, and I returned homeward dejected, 
leaving Glasgow for Edinburgh. 

I must tell an event, in itself very insignificant, but to me a 
new hint of that fortunate star which shines over me in what is 
little as well as great. During my last stay in Naples I had 
bought a plain cane made of palm, which had accompanied me 
on my travels, and thus to Scotland also ; when I drove with 
Hambro's family over the heath between Loch Katrine and 
Loch Lomond, one of the boys had taken my cane to play with, 
and when we came within sight of Loch Lomond he lifted it up 
in the air and exclaimed : " Palm, do you see the highest Scotch 
mountain ? Do you see there the wide sea ? " and so on \ and 
I promised that the cane, when it should again visit Naples 
with me, should tell his comrades about the land of mist, 
where the spirits of Ossian lived, — of the land where the 
red thistle-flower was honored, set sparkling in the heraldic 
arms, for people and land. The steamboat arrived sooner 
than we had expected, and we were called upon in a hurry 
to come on board. " Where is my cane ? " I asked. It had 
been left behind in the inn ; when the boat which brought 
us to the north end of the lake returned, I requested Mr. 
Puggaard when he went ashore to take the cane with him 
to Denmark. I arrived in Edinburgh, and in the morning 
I stood upon the platform at the depot waiting to go from 
there to London, when the train from the north arrived a few 
minutes before the departure of our train. The conductor 
alighted, came up to me, seemed to know me, and delivered 
me my cane, while he smilingly said, "It has travelled very 
well alone ! " A little label was attached to it with the in- 
scription, " The Danish poet, Hans Christian Andersen ! " and 
they had taken such care of it, that the cane hag! passed from 
hand to hand, first with the steamboat on Loch Lomond, then 
with an omnibus conductor, after that by steamboat again, 
and now by a railway train, only by means of its little address 
label ; it reached my hands just as the signal was given 



322 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

to start I am still under obligation to tell the adventures of 
the cane ; I wish I might some time do it as well as it made 
its journey alone ! 

I went southward by way of Newcastle and York. In the 
carriage I met the English author Hook and his wife ; they 
knew me and told me that all the Scotch newspapers had 
mentioned my stay with the queen ! — I, who had never been 
there at at all ! the newspapers knew it, and one of them said 
that I had read aloud my stories, yet not a word of it was true. 
I bought at one of the stations the most recent copy of 
" Punch." It was mentioned there; it had a sally, a little 
remark about a foreigner, a poet from abroad, being honored 
by an invitation from the Queen, that had never been bestowed 
on any English author. That and various other reports of a 
visit which never was realized, tormented me. Speaking of 
fthe witty paper, " Punch/' one of my fellow-travellers said, 
" That it was a sign of great popularity to be spoken of in it, 
and that many an Englishman would pay his pounds to come 
to that ! " I would rather prefer to be exempt from it ; low- 
spirited and depressed by the publicity, I arrived at London 
almost sick. 

I remained a couple of days in London. I had still 
'not seen anything there but high life, and several of the 
.country's most excellent men and women ; galleries, museums, 
;and all such things were on the contrary new to me ; I had 
not even had time to visit the Tunnel. Early one morning I 
decided to go to see it ; I was advised to go by one of the 
many small steamers which are running up and down the 
Thames through the city, but I felt so ill just as I started out, 
that I gave up the long excursion to the Tunnel, and it may 
be that my life was saved thereby ; for on the same day, and at 
the very hour I was to have gone on board, one of the steamers, 
the Cricket, was blown up with one hundred passengers. The 
report of the disaster was immediately spread over all London, 
and although it was not at all certain that I should have gone 
by just this boat, still the possibility, even the probability, was 
so near, that I became solemnly and gratefully impressed and 
thanked my God for the illness that overcame me shortly be- 
fore the moment when I should have gone on board. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



3 2 3 



Society had now left London, the opera was closed, most of 
my best friends had left for different watering-places or for the 
Continent. I longed for Denmark, and for my dear ones 
there ; but before I took leave of England I was invited to 
spend a few days more in the country, at "Seven Oaks," at the 
house of my publisher, Mr. Richard Bentley. That little town, 
near by Knowle's renowned park, is situated not far from the 
railway to the English Channel ; it was for me then a very 
convenient and agreeable visit to make on my way home. I 
had been before at Seven Oaks, which is a pretty little town. 
This time I went by railway to Tunbridge, where Bentley's 
carriage was sent for me. Danish nature was all about me ; 
the country was varied with beautiful hills, on which here and 
there stood many old trees, that rendered the whole land- 
scape like a park ; hedges or an iron fence formed the bound- 
ary. Elegant and comfortable rooms, roses and evergreen in 
the garden, close by the celebrated Knowle Park, whose old 
castle belongs to the Earl of Amherst. One of the possess- 
or's ancestors was a poet, and in his honor one of the saloons 
is called the poet-saloon ; here is the portrait of that old, 
right honorable lord,* the poet, in full length, and the por- 
traits of other famous poets adorn the other walls as if for 
company for the reigning poet. In one of the neighboring 
houses was a costumer-shop, just like the old curiosity shop 
which Dickens has painted for us in " Master Humphrey's 
Clock." The day passed away like a feast for me among 
those kind people • I became familiar with that genuine old 
English, excellent family life, where was found all the comfort 
that wealth and kindness can create. 

How much I needed tranquillity and repose after the great 
exertion which my stay in England and Scotland had occa- 
sioned. If I was weary and exhausted, still I felt, and how 
could it be otherwise, a great sadness at leaving so many who 
had offered me so much pleasure and done me so much good. 
Among many of those whom I loved and should not see again, 
at least for a long time, was Charles Dickens. He had, since our 
acquaintance at Lady Blessington.'s, called upon me without 
finding me at home. We did not meet again in London ; I re- 
ceived a few letters from him, and he brought me all his works 



324 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

in a beautiful illustrated edition, and in every volume honored 
me by writing : " Hans Christian Andersen, from his friend and 
admirer, Charles Dickens." They told me that he and his 
wife and children were at the sea-side somewhere on the Chan- 
nel, but they did not know where. I resolved to go from 
Ramsgate by way of Ostend, and wrote a letter to Dickens's 
address, hoping that it would find him, and told him the day 
and hour I expected to arrive at Ramsgate, and asked him to 
give his address in the hotel I was to stop at : then if he did 
not live too far away I would come and see him and once more 
meet him. At the " Royal Oak " was a letter from Dickens ; 
he lived about one Danish mile from there at Broadstairs, and 
he and his wife expected me to dinner ; I took a carriage and 
drove to that little town near the sea. Dickens occupied a 
whole house himself; it was narrow and confined, but neat and 
comfortable. He and his wife received me in a very kind 
manner. It was so pleasant within that it was a long time be- 
fore I perceived how beautiful was the view from the dining- 
room, where we sat; the windows faced the Channel, the 
open sea rolled its waves beneath them. While we dined the 
tide ebbed ; the falling of the waters was very rapid ; the 
great sands where so many shipwrecked sailors' bones repose, 
rose up mightily, the lantern in the light-house was lighted. 
We talked of Denmark and Danish literature, of Germany 
and the German language, which Dickens meant to learn ; 
an Italian organ-grinder happened- to come and play outside 
during dinner ; Dickens spoke Italian with the man, whose 
face was radiant at hearing his mother tongue. After dinner 
the children were brought in. " We have plenty of them ! " 
said Dickens ; there were no less than five, the sixth was not 
at home ; all the children kissed me, and the youngest one 
kissed his little hand and threw me a kiss. When the coffee 
was brought in, a young lady came as guest. " She is one of 
your admirers," said Dickens to me ; he had promised to in- 
vite her when I came. The evening passed very quickly. 
Mrs. Dickens seemed to be of about the same age as her hus- 
band, a little fleshy, # and with such a very honest and good- 
looking countenance that one would immediately feel confi- 
dence in her. She was a great admirer of Jenny Lind, and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE.^ 325 

wished much to have a bit of her handwriting, but it was 
very difficult to get. I had by me the little letter Jenny Lind 
had sent me on my arrival in London, to bid me welcome and 
to tell me where she lived* ; I gave this now to Mrs. Dickens. 
We parted late in the evening, and Dickens promised that he 
would write to me in Denmark. But we were to meet each 
other again before my departure, for Dickens surprised me by 
coming to Ramsgate the following morning, and was on the 
quay when I went on board. " I wished to bid you farewell 
once more ! " said he, and accompanied me on board, remain- 
ing by me until the bell gave the signal for departure. We 
shook hands, he looked with his earnest eyes into mine, and 
when the ship started he stood on the very edge of the quay, 
so sturdy, so youthful, and handsome ! He waved his hat. 
Dickens was the last one who gave me a friend's greeting 
from the dear English coast. 

I landed at Ostend. The first persons I met were the King 
of Belgium and his wife \ they received my first salutation, and 
reciprocated it kindly \ I did not know any other person there. 
The same day I went on the railway to Ghent. There, early 
in the morning, while I was waiting for the railway train to 
Cologne, several travellers came and presented themselves to 
me, saying that they knew me from my portrait. An Eng- 
lish family approached me ; one of the ladies came up to me ; 
she was an authoress, as she told me, had been a few times in 
London in society with me, but I was then, she said, quite 
surrounded and monopolized ; she had besought Reventlow 
to present her to me, but he had answered, " You see that it 
is impossible !" I laughed ; it really was the case. I was in 
the fashion as long as it lasted ; now I was entirely at her ser- 
vice. She was natural and kind, and I thanked my propi- 
tious star that I was so renowned. " How little it is ! " said 
I, and added, " and how long will it last ? " But still it has 
given me pleasure, although there is anxiety in being lifted so 
high, not knowing whether one can keep his place ! I was very 
thankful for all the honor and prosperity I had acquired ; 
through all Germany, where they had read of the honor I had 
found in England, great kindness and esteem was shown me. 
At Hamburg I met with countrymen of both sexes : — 



326 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" My God ! Andersen, are you here ? " was the reception ; 
" nay, you cannot believe what immense fun "The Corsair " has 
made of your stay in England; you are represented with lau- 
rel-wreath and purses ! My God, how funny it is ! " I reached 
Copenhagen ; a few hours after my arrival I was standing 
at my window, when two well-dressed gentlemen passed by ; 
they perceived me, laughed, and one of them pointed at me, 
and said so loud that I could hear every word, — 

" See, there stands our orang-outang so famous abroad ! " 
It was rude — it was wicked — it reached my heart — and 
will never be forgotten ! 

I met also with sympathizing friends, — many who were 
glad of the honor which had been shown me, and the Danish 
nation through me, in skillful Holland and rich England. 
One of our older authors grasped me kindly by my hand, and 
said frankly and beautifully, " I have not before rightly read 
your works, now I will do it. People have spoken harshly of 
you, but you are something, must be something more than 
people here at home will allow; the manner in which you 
are received in England is such as would not befall an in- 
significant man ! I honestly confess that I have now another 
opinion of you " 

One of my dearest friends told me, however, something 
quite different, and proved it too in writing. He had sent 
to one of our prominent editors some English newspapers, 
in which mention was made of the honor I enjoyed in Lon- 
don, anpl also gave a very kind review of " The True Story 
of my Life." But the man would not print what was said 
about me, because, he said, " People would think that they 
made a fool of Andersen in England ! " He would not be- 
lieve it, and he knew that most of my countrymen would not 
believe it either. One of the newspapers reported , that I 
had received money from the state for my journey, and there- 
fore it was easy to understand how I could travel every year. 
I told King Christian VIII. what was written about me. 

"You have — what I think few would have done," — said 
he, " refused my honest offer ! They are unjust toward you 
at home ! They do not know you ! " 

The first little book I wrote after my return, a volume of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



327 



stories, I sent to England; they were published at Christinas 
time : " A Christmas Greeting to my English Friends; " it was 
dedicated thus to Charles Dickens : — 

" I am again in my quiet Danish home, but my thoughts 
are daily in dear England, where, a few months ago, my many 
friends transformed for me reality into a charming story. 

" Whilst occupied with a greater work, there sprung forth — 
as the flowers spring forth in the forest — seven short stories. 
I feel a desire, a longing, to transplant in England the first 
produce of my poetic garden, as a Christmas greeting ; and I 
send it to you, my dear, noble Charles Dickens, who by your 
works had been previously dear to me, and since our meeting 
have taken root forever in my heart. 

" Your hand was the last that pressed mine on England's 
coast ; it was you who from her shores wafted me the last 
farewell. It is therefore natural that I should send to you, 
from Denmark, my first greeting again, as sincerely as an 
affectionate heart can convey it. 

" Hans Christian Andersen. 

" Copenhagen, 6th December, 1847." 

The little book was extremely well received and flatteringly 
noticed. Yet what brightened my soul and heart like a true 
sunbeam, was the first letter from Dickens, in which he sent 
me his thanks and greeting. His affectionate nature shines 
forth and breathes a goodness toward me that makes me rich. 
Having before shown you all my best treasures, why should I 
not show you this ? Dickens will not misunderstand me. 

" A thousand thanks, my dear Andersen, for your kind 
and very valuable recollection of me in your Christmas book. 
I am very proud of it, and feel deeply honored by it ; I cannot 
tell you how much I value such a token of acknowledgment 
from a man with the genius which you are possessed of. 

" Your book made my Christmas hearth very happy. We 
are all enchanted by it The little boy, the old man, and 
the tin-soldier are especially my favorites. I have repeatedly 
read that story, and read it with the most unspeakable pleasure.* 

" I was a few days ago at Edinburgh, where I saw some of 
your friends, who talked much about you. Come again to 



328 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

England, soon ! But whatever you do, do not stop writing, 
because we cannot bear to lose a single one of your thoughts. 
They are too true and simply beautiful to be kept safe o;ily in 
your own head. 

" We returned some time since from the sea-coast where I 
bade you adieu, and are now at our own house. My wife tells 
me that I must give you her kind greetings. Her sister tells 
me the same. The same say all my children. And as we have 
all the same sentiments, I beg you to receive the summary in 
an affectionate greeting from your sincere and admiring friend, 

" Charles Dickens. 

"To Hans Christian Andersen." 

My poem, " Ahasuerus," appeared that Christmas in Dan- 
ish and German. Several years before, when I entertained 
the idea of that poem, Oehlenschlager spoke to me about it. 
" How is it ? " said he : " they say that you are writing a drama 
of the world, with the history of all times ; I cannot under- 
stand it ! " I explained to him the idea as I have also ex- 
pressed it earlier in these pages. " But in what form will 
you be able to do all that ? " he asked. 

" I use alternately the lyric, epic, and dramatic, — now in 
verse and now in prose ! " 

" You cannot do that ! " exclaimed the great poet passion- 
ately. " I also know something of making poems ! There is 
something which is called form and limit, and these must be 
respected ! Green wood has its place and burned coals theirs ! 
What answer have you for that ? " 

" I certainly have an answer ! " said I kindly, although I 
was possessed to treat the matter jestingly. " I can certainly 
answer you, but you will become angry if I say what is in my 
mind ! " 

" Indeed, I shall not take it ill ! " said he. 

" Well, to show you that I really have an answer, I will 
keep to your words, — the green wood by itself and the burned 
coals by themselves. Now go on and say the sulphur by itself 
and the saltpetre by itself; but then there would come one 
who mixed all those parts together, and — so he has invented 
gunpowder." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 329 

" Andersen ! it is dreadful to hear that expression, — to in- 
vent gunpowder ! You are a good man, but you are, as all say, 
too vain ! " — " But does not that belong to the trade ? " the 
frolicsome demon of humor prompted me to answer. "The 
trade ! the trade ! " repeated the good poet, who did not now 
understand me at all. When " Ahasuerus " was published he 
read it, and wishing to know if he now had altered his earlier 
opinion of it, he wrote me a very well meant and sincere letter 
in which he told me candidly how little the poem pleased him, 
and as his words at all times have an interest, and as several 
others have also looked upon my poem in the same way, I 
shall not conceal his judgment : — 

" My dear Andersen, — I have always acknowledged 
and esteemed your fine talent in relating naturally and ingen- 
iously stories that have originality, as also in painting in the 
novel and in the account of travels the life which you meet 
with. I have been pleased, too, with your talent in the drama, 
for instance in 'The Mulatto,' although the subject was already 
given and poetically elaborated, and its beauties were mostly 
lyric. But a couple of years ago, when you read something 
to me, I gave you honestly to understand that the plan and 
form of the poem did not please me at all. Notwithstanding 
that, you seemed to be disagreeably surprised when I last 
talked with you, at my repeating it ; remarking that after 
all I only read a little of the book. I have now perused it 
with attention throughout, and cannot change my opinion. 
The book makes an unpleasant impression upon me : you 
must excuse my speaking so frankly. You ask me to tell you 
my opinion ; and I am obliged to tell it to you, when I would not 
put you off falsely with fair words. As far as I understand 
dramatic composition, ' Ahasuerus' is no subject for a drama, 
and therefore Goethe wisely gave it up. 

" The wonderful legend ought to be treated in a humorous 
manner as a wonder story. He was a shoemaker, but a 
shoemaker that went beyond his last, and was too proud 
not to believe what he could not comprehend. In making 
him an abstract idea of speculative poetry, you cannot make 
him an object of true poetry, still less of a drama. A drama 



330 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

requires necessarily a contracted, completed action, that may 
be held in the mind, and is expressed and unfolded by char- 
acter. This is not the case with your piece. ' Ahasuerus ' is 
presented throughout as a retiring and contemplating spec- 
tator. The other personages act as little ; the whole poem 
consists of lyric aphorisms, fragments, sometimes of narra- 
tive, all loosely combined. It seems to me that there is too 
much of pretension and too little of efficacy in the poem. It 
includes neither more nor less than the whole history of the 
world from the birth of Christ till our time. For those who 
profoundly and truly have studied history, with all its grand 
scenes and excellent characters, there can be no satisfaction 
in regarding those lyric aphorisms of hobgoblins, swallows, 
nightingales, mermaids, etc. Of course there are some beau- 
tiful lyric or descriptive passages, e. g., 'The Gladiators/ 
* The Huns/ ' The Savages ; ' but that is not enough. The 
whole is like a dream ; your natural propensity for writing 
stories is also visible here, because all images are represented 
almost as wondrous visions. The genius of history is not 
presented in its great variety ; thought has too little place ; 
the images are not new, nor are they original enough ; there is 
nothing that touches the heart \ on the contrary, in ' Barna- 
bas ' there is something unnatural in the way he comes, after 
his crime, to honor and dignity, for no action nor develop- 
ment of character are seen in him ; we only hear it said that 
he formerly murdered an old woman, and then there is joy in 
heaven over his conversion. That is now my opinion ! Per- 
haps I fail, but I speak honestly on conviction, and cannot 
change my judgment for politeness or flattery ! Pardon me 
if I have innocently grieved you, and be assured that for the 
rest I acknowledge and regard you as an original poet, full of 
genius in other directions. " Truly yours, 

• " A. Oehlenschlager. 

u December 23, 1847." 

There is much truth and justice in this letter about my 
poem, but I regard my work otherwise than the noble great 
poet has done. I have not called " Ahasuerus " a dramatic 
*poem> and it ought not at all to be placed in that style of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 33 1 

poetry ; there is not and cannot be either the dramatic in- 
cident or its accompaniment of character-painting. " Ahasu- 
erus " is a poem which in a changing form is intended to 
express the idea that mankind rejects the divine, but still 
proceeds toward perfection. I have tried to represent it 
shortly, clearly, and richly, believing that I should best attain 
that by changing the form ; the historical tops of mountain 
have served me as scenery. It should not be compared with 
a drama of Scribe or an epos of Milton : the aphoristic sim- 
plicities are like mosaic blocks ; the pieces taken together form 
the entire image. We can say of any building that we see it 
stone by stone ; each one may be taken separately, but it is 
not so that we should look at them but as an entirety pro- 
duced by the combination of parts. 

In later years many opinions have been expressed con- 
cerning the poem, which agree with my belief that it always will 
mark a transition-point in my poetic life. The first, and I must 
almost say the only one, who was immediately and highly 
touched by my poem, was the historian Ludwig Miiller, who 
considered " Ahasuerus " and " Wonder Stories " as the two 
books which gave me position in Danish literature. 

From abroad a similar acknowledgment has reached me. 
In " The Picture-hall of the World's Literature," where there 
is a considerable collection of lyric and dramatic poetry from 
all countries, — from Hebrew psalms and Arabian folk-songs 
to the troubadours and the poets of our days, — the section 
" Scandinavian " contained of Danish authors, besides scenes 
of " Hakon Jarl," " King Rene's Daughter," and " Tiber," a 
few scenes also from " Ahasuerus." 

Just as I finish these pages, eight years after the first pub- 
lication of the poem, a well disposed and profound critic of 
my collected writings has favored " Ahasuerus" in the " Danish 
Monthly " with a greater attention than before ; it is recog- 
nized as what I myself considered it to be, a running on^ 
which points at my future development as a poet. 



J& 



f a^ 




CHAPTER XIV. 



THE year 1848 rolled up its curtain, — a remarkable year, 
a volcanic. year, when the heavy waves of time washed 
also over our country with the blood of war. During the first 
days of January, King Christian VIII. was sick ; the last 
time I saw him was on an evening ; I received a note inviting 
me to tea, and asking me to bring something or other to read 
for his Majesty. Besides his Majesty I found here the Queen, 
a lady of honor, and a courtier. The King greeted me very 
tenderly, but was obliged to lie down on the sofa ; I read for 
him a couple of chapters from my unfinished novel, " The 
Two Baronesses," and besides that two or three stories ; the 
King seemed very animated, and laughed and talked in a 
lively fashion. When I took leave he nodded kindly to me 
from his couch, and the last words I heard him say were : 
" We shall soon meet again." But we did not. He grew 
very ill • I felt a restlessness and anxiety at fear of losing 
him, and went every day out to Amalienburg to ask after his 
state of health ; we heard soon that he was surely going to 
die ; I went in grief with the news to Oehlenschlager, who 
very strangely had not heard that the King's life was in 
danger ; he saw my affliction and burst into tears \ he was 
most intimately attached to the King. 

In the forenoon of the next day I met Oehlenschlager at 
Amalienburg, leaning on Christiani, coming out from the 
antechamber. Oehlenschlager was pale ; he did not t say a 
word, pressed my hand in passing, and tears were in his eyes. 
The King was almost given up. The twentieth of January I 
went out there several times ; I stood in the evening in the 
snow and looked up at the windows, where the King within 
was dying. At a quarter past ten he departed. The next 
morning people were standing before the palace : within Chris- 
tian VIII. lay dead ! I went home and wept bitterly and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



533 



tenderly for him, whom I loved unspeakably, and now was lost 
for me in this world. 

The whole city of Copenhagen was in motion ; a new order 
of things was developing. On the twenty-eighth of January 
the Constitution was announced. Christian VIII. lay on lit 
de parade ; I came there, I saw him, and became so painfully 
touched that I was taken ill and carried into one of the side 
rooms. The twenty-fifth of February the King's corpse was 
brought to Roeskilde ; I sat at home and listened to the toll- 
ing of the church bells. Great changes were passing over 
Europe : the revolution broke out in Paris ; Louis Philippe with 
his family left France ; like heavy seas the revolt went through 
the cities of Germany \ at home we still only read of such 
things. Here only was a home of peace ! here we could still 
breathe freely and enjoy art, the drama, and all that was beauti- 
ful. But peace did not last long, the heavy swells reached us 
also. The uproar broke out in Holstein. Rumor struck here 
and there like a flash of lightning, and all was in motion. A 
very great mass of people was gathered in the large Casino- 
hall, and next morning a deputation waited upon the King : I 
stood at the open place before the palace and looked at the 
great multitude. The King's answer was soon known in the 
city, as also the dismission of the ministry. I became aware 
how differently the events were regarded in different circles. 
Great companies of people crowded the streets night and day, 
singing national songs ; no excesses happened, but it was 
rather unpleasant to meet those almost strange people, those 
unknown faces ; it was as if an entirely new race had come 
forth. Several friends of order and peace joined the crowd 
of people in order to lead them from wrong ways. I was ap- 
pointed one of the committee of peace, and often, when the 
crowd cried out the name of a place where they perhaps would 
have committed some excess, a single one of us needed only 
to repeat " Straight forward ! " and the whole crowd would 
move forward ! The public sang in the theatres, and the 
orchestra played national songs. It was announced that the 
city was to be illuminated, and strangely enough, those who 
were the least well disposed toward the new ministry illumi- 
nated their houses, for fear of getting their windows cracked. 



334 THE ST R Y OF MY LIFE. 

The Sleswick deputies came to Copenhagen ; the rage 
against them was great, but the King announced in his procla- 
mation : " We trust to the honor of our Danish people the 
safety of the Sleswick-Holstein deputies ! " The students pre- 
served peace ; they went round in the crowd and spoke 
friendly words. Soldiers were drawn up in the streets, that the 
deputies might safely walk down to the steamship \ the mass 
of people was here awaiting them, but meantime the deputies 
were led from the palace to the canal behind it, and from 
there to the custom-house, where without being observed they 
went on board. 

Preparations for war were made by land and by sea. Every 
one aided as well as he could. One of our officers came 
to me and said that it would be well if I were to defend our 
cause through the English press, where I was known and 
read. I wrote immediately to Mr. Jerdan, the editor of the 
" Literary Gazette," where my letter, a true account of the 
tone and situation at home, was immediately published. 

u Copenhagen, 13 April, 1848. 
" Dear Friend, — A few weeks only have elapsed since I 
wrote to you, and in the history of time lies a range of events, 
as if years had passed. Politics has never been my business ; 
poets have another mission ; but now, when convulsions are 
shaking the countries, so that it is almost impossible to stand 
upon the ground without feeling it to the very ends of the 
fingers, we must speak of it. You know how momentous it is 
in Denmark ; we have war ! but a war carried on by the en- 
tire animated Danish people, — a war where noble-born and 
peasant, inspired by a righteous cause, place themselves vol- 
untarily in the ranks of battle ; an enthusiasm and patriotism 
fill and elevate the whole Danish nation. The false light in 
which the leaders of the Sleswick-Holstein party have for 
many years through German newspapers brought us before 
the honest German people ; the manner in which the Prince 
of Noer has taken Rendsborg, saying that the Danish king 
was not free, and that it was in his royal interest he acted, — 
all this has excited the Danes, and the people as one man have 
risen : all small matters of every-day life give place to great 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 335 

and noble traits. All is in motion, but with order and union \ 
contributions of money are flowing in freely from all ranks 
and classes, even the poor journeyman and servant-girl bring 
their share. It was heard that horses were wanting, and in a 
few days so many of them were sent from city and country 
that the Minister of War has been obliged to publish that he 
did not require any more. In all the houses women are pick- 
ing lint \ in the upper classes of the schools boys are occupied 
in making cartridges \ most of those who are able to bear arms 
exercise themselves in the use of them. Young counts and 
barons place themselves as subalterns in the ranks of the sol- 
diers, and you may comprehend that the soldiers' courage and 
enthusiasm are strengthened by the knowledge that all stand 
alike in love and defense of the father-land. 

"Among the volunteers is also the son of the Governor of 
Norway, — a young man, who belongs to one of the first fami- 
lies. He was here on a visit last winter, and, carried away by 
our honest cause, he wished to share in the combat, but as a 
foreigner he could not be admitted ; he then immediately 
bought a Danish house, presented himself as a Danish citizen, 
put on the soldier's jacket, and marched off as a subaltern 
with one of the regiments, decided to live on his hard tack 
and his wages, twelve Danish shillings a day, and to share 
his comrades' lot. And like him Danish men of all classes 
have done the same \ the gentleman and the student, the rich 
and the poor, all go together, singing and rejoicing as to a 
festival ! Our King himself has gone to the army's head- 
quarters ; he is Danish and honest-minded for his righteous 
cause. He is surrounded by his life-guard, consisting partly 
of Holsteiners \ those were at the departure exempted from 
going against their countrymen, but every one of them begged 
as a favor to be allowed to go, and it was granted. 

" Until this moment and we hope further our Lord is with 
us. The army goes quickly and victoriously forward : the 
island of Als is taken, as also the towns of Flensborg and 
Sleswickj we stand at the boundary of Holstein. and have 
taken more than a thousand prisoners ; the most part of them 
are brought here to Copenhagen, very enraged against the 
prince of Noer, who, notwithstanding his promise to sacrifice 



336 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

his life and blood with them, left them in the first battle, — left 
them when the Danes with gunshots and bayonets entered 
Flensborg by force. At the present time the storms of change 
sweep through the countries, but the one above all of them, 
the righteous God, does not change ! He is for Denmark, — 
that great Will which is right, and which shall and must be 
acknowledged ; truth is the victorious power of all people and 
nations. 

" ' For the nationalities, their rights ; for honest and good 
men, all prosperity ! ' That is and must be Europe's watch- 
word, and with it I look trustingly forward. The Germans 
are an honest, truth-loving people ; they will come to see 
more clearly into our situation, and their enmity will and must 
be changed into esteem and friendship : may that thought 
soon come ! May God make his countenance to shine over 
the countries ! " Hans Christian Andersen." 

The letter was one among the very few that went through 
several of the newspapers abroad. I felt more than ever before 
how firmly I had grown to the native soil and how Danish 
was my heart ; I could have taken my place in the soldiers' 
ranks, and gladly have given my life an offering to victory and 
peace, but at the same time the thought came vividly over me 
how much good I had enjoyed in Germany, the great acknowl- 
edgment which my talent there had received, and the many 
single persons whom I there loved and was grateful to. I suf- 
fered infinitely ! and when sometimes one or another excited 
mind expressed itself in anger and harshness, seeking to break 
down that feeling in me, then it was often more than I could 
bear ! I will not here offer any examples of these words ; I hope 
the best, that all bitter words from that time may disappear, 
and the wound be healed between these kindred people ! H. 
C. Orsted here again raised my spirits, and predicted a new 
spirit toward me, which has come indeed. There was con- 
cord, there was love ; many of my young friends went out as 
volunteers, among them Valdemar Drewsen and Baron Henry 
Stampe. Orsted was strongly touched at the progress of 
events ; he wrote in one of our daily newspapers three poems, 
"The Combat," "Victory," and " Peace." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 337 

To put on the red jacket was in former days a step taken 
only in desperation ; the soldier was then but a poor fellow : 
now the red jacket came suddenly into esteem and honor ; 
ladies in silk and gauze walked with the red-jacketed soldier. 
The first one I saw of high rank was Lovenskjold, the Nor- 
wegian Governor's son, and also the young Count Adam 
Knuth, who had very recently been confirmed. He lost one 
of his limbs by a minie ball. Lovenskjold fell, as also the 
painter Lundbye, but the last one died from an accidental 
shot. I heard of it from an eye-witness. Lundbye stood 
leaning in a melancholy manner on his musket ; some peasants 
passed by where other muskets near him were placed, and 
they happened to knock them down ; a shot was heard, and 
Lundbye was seen falling to the ground j he was shot through 
the jaw, the mouth was torn open, and a piece of flesh with 
the beard on shot away : he uttered some feeble sighs ; was 
wrapped up in a Dannebrog-flag, and laid in the earth. 

These young men's enthusiasm moved me to tears, and 

one day, hearing a jest of some young gentlemen, who before 

used to sport kid gloves, but now as pioneers were digging at 

trenches with red, blistered hands, I rushed up and exclaimed 

rom my very heart, " I should like to kiss those hands ! " 

Almost every day troops of young men were marching off. I 

accompanied a young friend, and coming home I wrote the 

song, — 

" I cannot stay, I have no rest ! " 

It was soon was taken up as a popular song and was really stir- 
ring to hear. 

" The Easter bell chimed " — the unfortunate Easter Day 
of Sleswick rose : the hostile forces divided ours ; heavy 
grief was spread over the country ; but courage was not lost, 
strength became more concentrated, men were knit closer to 
one another ; this appeared as well in great as in small things. 
The Prussians entered Jutland ; our troops, Als. In the middle 
of May I went to Funen, and found the whole manor of Glorup 
filled with our troops ; their head-quarters was in Odense. At 
Glorup were forty men, besides several high officers ; General 
Hedemann kept up maneuvers on the fields. The old Count 
treated all the volunteers among the subalterns like officers, 



338 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

and gave them places at his table. Most of the officers had 
been in the campaign, and related in a lively manner what 
they had seen pass. Their night-quarters had sometimes been 
in an open street of a village, where they slept by the side of 
the houses, with their knapsacks under their heads, in rain and 
storm ; sometimes they were stowed in small chambers, where 
their couch was often a high chest of drawers ornamented with 
brass work, which was very hard on the flesh, but the exceed- 
ing weariness saved them from feeling anything, and they slept 
soundly. A young surgeon told us of his march with the 
soldiers over the bare heaths ; he was assigned a church for a 
hospital, the altar-candles were lighted, but still it was half 
dark ; far off signal-shots were heard ; the enemy was coming ; 
the whole exciting scene of that night was brought as clearly 
to my mind as if I myself had seen it pass. The Prussians 
had pressed through Jutland ; they asked a contribution of four 
millions, and reports of another battle were soon heard. 

All our thoughts and hopes were turned toward the Swedes : 
their debarkation was to take place at Nyborg, where every- 
thing was arranged to receive them in a solemn manner. The 
manor of Glorup received sixteen Swedish officers with their 
attendants, besides twenty musicians and subaltern officers ; 
among the Swedes were four men, supplied by the Duke of 
Augustenborg, or rather by his estates in Sweden, which were 
obliged to furnish them against their lord. The Swedes were 
received with rejoicing; the true zeal shown by the stewardess 
of Glorup, old Miss Ibsen, was characteristic and beautiful ; 
the great quartering of soldiers on the manor gave her much 
to think of. " A great bed must be made for them in the 
barn ! " was said. " To let them lie in the barn upon straw ! " 
said she. " No, they shall have beds ! They are coming here 
to help us, and they shall certainly have a bed ! " and she had 
wood procured and bedsteads made for ten or twelve rooms. 
Feather-beds were also obtained; coarse but white sheets were 
shining in her " caserne, " as she called it. I have later given 
a picture in the " Nordischer Telegraph " of the Swedish sol- 
diers' stay in Funen, as I saw it at Glorup, and I think that a 
miniature of it would be in its right place here. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



339 



THE SWEDES IN FUNEN, 1848. 

I must tell you a little of the Swedes in Funen ! Their 
stay here is among the most beautiful and bright images of 
this summer. I witnessed their solemn reception in the small 
towns, the waving flags, the radiant faces ; many miles far up 
in the country, peasants were standing in crowds along the 
roads, old and young, asking, full of expectation, " Are the 
Swedes coming now ? " They were received with eating and 
drinking, with flowers and hand-shakings. They were kind- 
hearted men, well-disciplined soldiers ; their morning and 
evening devotion was very solemn, as also their church - 
service every Sunday, all in the open air, after ancient warlike 
custom from the time of Gustavus Adolphus. The divine ser- 
vice on Sunday took place in the old mansion-house, where 
one of the highest commanding officers and the whole band 
of music were quartered \ the band played, the troops 
marched into the large, square castle yard, and were here 
drawn up in order, the officers in front ; the singing of psalms 
commenced, accompanied by the music. Now the chaplain 
stepped forth on the large staircase, whose high stone breast- 
work was covered with a great carpet. I recollect well the 
last Sunday here : during the service, which had begun 
in gray, stormy weather, the minister spoke of the angel of 
peace, who descended as God's mild animating sunshine, and 
just as he spoke of it, the sun accidentally broke forth and 
shone upon the polished helms and the pious faces. Yet the 
most solemn of all was the morning and evening devotion. 
The companies were drawn up on the open road ; an under- 
officer read a short prayer, and now they intoned the psalms 
with accompaniment of music ; when the song was ended, 
through the whole rank was heard a profound " God' save 
the King ! " I perceived many of our old peasants standing 
at the ditch and behind the hedge, with uncovered heads and 
clasped hands, joining silently in the divine service. 

After the usual daily military exercise the Swedish soldier 
was seen faithfully assisting in the field in this year's rich 
harvest. At the manor, where we had the regimental band, 
there was playing every afternoon until sunset ; the long lin- 



340 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

den-tree alleys in the garden were filled with people from the 
whole neighborhood : it was a daily feast ; in the evening the 
Swedish violin was tuned in the servants' hall, and dancing 
commenced with mutual pleasure. As to the language, the 
Funen peasant and Swedish soldier understand each other 
soon. It was a real pleasure to observe the mutual- affection, 
and how every one gave with good-will according to his 
abilities. "But did not the Swedish army come to fight ?'" 
will perhaps be said by one or another. Yes, but all the good 
of the moment does not lie in the blow of the sword. The 
esteem and friendship and harmony which of late years have 
been established, especially among the younger ones in the 
university cities, are now, by the Swedes' stay in Funen, brought 
about for thousands of the people themselves : what did the 
Funen or Swedish peasant know of the near relationship in 
which one stands to the other ? The recollections of old hostile 
times were still alive ; those are now dissipated, the neighbor- 
ing people are drawn nearer to each other, a good under- 
standing is laid, and good understanding is an herb of peace, 
and one that brings blessings only. In the peasant's house, 
in the parsonage, as well as at the manor, many an eye shed 
tears at the departure. On the quay, at Nyborg, where the 
Swedish and Danish flags waved, many a reciprocal visit was 
agreed upon in the coming year of peace. The Dane will 
never forget the Swede ; we have heard and felt his heart's 
throbbing ; many a little Swedish town, that cannot boast of 
riches, clubbed money together, " the widow's holy mite," for 
the Danish brother. When the report of the Danish defeat at 
Sleswick was spread over the country, far up in Sweden the 
parishioners were assembled in their church, the minister 
praying for king and father-land, when an old peasant rose up 
and said : " Father, please to say a prayer for the Danes 
also ! " That is one of those little traits that lift our hearts 
from earthly things. The nations of the North understand, 
esteem, and love each other ; may that spirit of unity and love 
always hover over all countries ! 

The most of the summer I spent at Glorup. Being there both 
in the spring and autumn, I was witness to the Swedes' arrival 



THE STOR Y OF MY LIFE. 



341 



and also their departure. I did not myself go to the seat of 
war • I remained at Glorup, where people daily arrived \ some 
driven by curiosity, and relations also who went over to see 
their dear ones. All that I heard of honorable deeds at the seat 
of war, was lodged in my mind : I heard of an old grandmother, 
who with her grandchildren stood on the road when our troops 
past by ; she had strewn sand and flowers for them, and cried 
out with the little ones : " God bless the Danes ! " I heard 
of a freak of nature, that in a peasant's garden at Sleswick 
red poppies were growing with white crosses, displaying per- 
fectly the Dannebrog colors. One of my friends visited Als, 
and then went over to Dyppel, where all the houses had 
chinks and holes made by cannon-balls and canister shot, 
and yet there remained still upon one of the houses the sym- 
bol of peace — a stork's nest with its whole family; the violent 
shooting, fire, and smoke had not been able to drive the 
parents away from their little ones when they could not as 
yet fly. 

The mail from abroad brought me in the latter part of the 
summer a letter, written by an unknown hand ; its tenor af- 
fected me much, and showed us also how events are often 
reported abroad. The letter was from a high functionary, the 
subject of a foreign sovereign; he wrote that, notwithstanding 
he had never seen me, nor had the least acquaintance with me, 
he believed yet, through my writings, especially " The Story 
of my Life," that he knew he could trust me ; and then he 
said, that one morning the report had reached the city 
where he lived, that the Danes had made an assault upon 
Kiel and set it on fire ; the young people were alarmed, and 
in the excitement of the moment his youngest son went with 
the other young fellows to help the hardly pressed citizens ; 
the young man was made prisoner at the battle of Bau, and 
carried to Copenhagen on board a ship of the line, Queen 
Mary. He was among those who, after a long stay on board, 
were allowed to leave the ship ; but as soon as they were 
ashore some of them committed excesses, so that only those 
who could procure a guarantee for their conduct from a citizen 
of Copenhagen were allowed to go ashore. The letter- writer 
did not know a single one at Copenhagen; I was the only one 



342 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

whom he knew, and that through my writings alone, and in me 
he had confidence and hope, and therefore he asked me if I 
would bail the son, who was a brave, kind-hearted man. He 
requested me also to find board for him in a Copenhagen 
family " that did not hate the Germans too much ! " 

His confidence touched me, and I wrote immediately to one 
of my most influential friends in Copenhagen, inclosing the 
German letter, to enable him to see clearly the whole affair 
as it had been given me, and asked if the request could be 
granted upon my responsibility, and to any benefit for the 
young man. I knew that every hour which passed was an 
hour of confinement, and, therefore, I sent immediately an 
express with my letter to the nearest town. The next post- 
day I received an answer that we need not do anything, as all 
the prisoners had just been released and sent by steamship 
to Kiel. I was very glad on the father's account, and also glad 
at having immediately done what my heart told me to do ; but 
I did not answer his letter, that was not necessary ; the man 
has never heard of my sympathy. Now for the first time in the 
blessed days of peace I send him my greeting, which I have 
often thought of offering him ; and I dare add, that his letter 
touched me deeply, and I acted in the same way as every one 
of my countrymen, if honored by the same confidence, would 
have acted. 

I left Glorup in the autumn ; the approach of winter brought 
a cessation of hostilities j the apparent tranquillity turned 
thought and activity for a while back on accustomed occupa- 
tions. I had finished at Glorup, in the course of the summer, 
my novel, " The Two Baronesses," which, as regards the de- 
scription of island nature, has certainly gained in freshness and 
truth by that summer sojourn. 

The English edition was dedicated to my English publisher, 
the honored and well-known Richard Bentley. The book was 
issued, and, considering the time and circumstances, was pretty 
well received ; one of our newspapers, to be sure, confused the 
novel and the movements of time together in such a way that 
they did not find it just that the old Baroness, happy at her 
favorite the Chamberlain's contentment with London, should 
propose a toast for England : and remarked that it was a little 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



343 



too early to let her do that, because England had not yet done 
anything for the Danes. 

Heiberg read the book and wrote me some kind words, and 
gave a dinner to me and several of our friends and acquaint- 
ances. He drank my health with these beautiful words : 
" To that novel, which we leave as refreshed as after a wander- 
ing in the wood in the spring-time." It was the first really 
kind union, after many years, with that poet \ it made me a 
new man, and " the bitter was forgotten, the new sweet kept." 

The centennial anniversary of the Danish Theatre was to 
be celebrated the eighth of December j Heiberg and Collin 
both agreed in charging me with the writing of the prelude 
for the affair. Bournonville was to give a ballet on the same 
occasion, and gave " Old Memories ; " the most picturesque 
scenes from the ballets of the play-book were seen as through 
a magic lantern. My plan of the prelude received the ap- 
probation of the directors ; they liked my idea, which was 
based entirely on the present time. I knew with what feelings 
people at that time came to the theatre, and how little attrac- 
tion it had for them, because their thoughts were with the 
soldiers in the war \ I therefore was obliged to let my poem 
go with them, and then to try to carry it back to the Danish 
stage. My conviction told me that our strength nowadays 
does not lie in the sword, but in intellectual ability, and I 
wrote " Denmark's Work of Art," as it is known, and is to be 
seen in my collected writings. On the festival evening it was 
received with great applause ; but it was a mistake to have 
it given to the subscribers of theatre-seats, and to be used as 
a prologue a whole week through. On the feast-day it was, 
as I said, received with great applause ; people were trans- 
ported j but now came the newspapers, and one of them blamed 
me for making the prelude contain a disgusting prattling of 
Denmark and Dannebrog ; that we ought to let others praise 
us and not do it ourselves, otherwise it would seem like Hol- 
berg's " Jacob von Thybo," etc. Another newspaper re- 
ported the prelude in such a manner that I could not well see 
whether the reporter had written in a spirit of folly or of 
malice. At the fourth representation it had already grown to 
be an old story ; they did not applaud any more ; and from that 



344 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

representation came the critique in " The North and South," 
whose reviewer was not satisfied with my poem : the poem 
made, however, an impression in due time, and I consider 
still the idea and its whole form as successful, and the only 
right one in those days when we were possessed by such na- 
tional feelings. 

In January " The Marriage at the Lake of Como " was 
brought on the stage, and now the composer Glaser, who 
had long been shown indifference, even injustice, was appre- 
ciated, and his music received with great applause. The crit- 
icism in the newspaper was warm and commendatory; his music 
and Bournonville's arrangements were highly praised, whereas 
I was not mentioned. Glaser, on the contrary, expressed him- 
self warmly and kindly for the honor I had shown him. 

Fredrika Bremer came at Christmas for the first time to 
Copenhagen. I was the only one she knew personally, and 
her other acquaintance was confined to having been in corre- 
spondence with the present Bishop Martensen. I had thus the 
pleasure of receiving her, of being at her service, and of taking 
her round in Copenhagen, which was as easy as it was pleasant 
with a woman of her position. She stayed here all winter and 
a great part of summer, during which she visited Ingemann at 
Soro, and made an excursion to Svendborg and Moen's Klint ; 
her heart was firmly fixed on the Danish cause, and that we 
can clearly see from her little book, the visible flower of her 
stay here, which is published in Swedish, English, German, 
and Danish, "Life in the North." Her heart and thought 
were for the Danes. The little book did not, however, find 
the appreciation, we may even say the gratitude, which she 
rightly deserved here ; we always criticise, especially where we 
see that the heart acts a part. People dwelt upon the too 
exaggerated picture of the crowds in " East Street," which we 
were accustomed to, but not she, who had not yet seen Lon- 
don nor the great cities of America. Her little book shows a 
strong affection for Denmark, yet it did not get the acknowl- 
edgment which we owed it ; but from its leaves there shine 
the sympathy, the tears I so often saw in her eyes ; she felt 
deeply for the destiny of the Danish people and land. 

The report that the ship of the line Christian VIII. had 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 345 

blown up on Maunday Thursday, with all the troops on board, 
arrived here one evening in April ; people were in the theatre, 
the report found its way in, there was a hum through the 
multitude, the most part of course went out; it was empty 
within, the streets were filled, a grief pervaded all, deep and 
absorbing. All the theatres were closed ; it was a public grief. 
It was if one stood upon a sinking wreck. A single life saved 
from the ship was as a victory that had been won. 

I met in the street my friend, the Captain-lieutenant, Chr. 
Wulff; his eyes sparkled, he pressed my hand. " Do you know 
whom I bring home ? " said he : " Lieutenant Ulrich ! he is not 
blown up, he is saved, has fled, reached our outposts, and I 
bring him home ! " I did not know Lieutenant Ulrich at 
all, but I burst into tears of joy. "Where is he? I must 
see him ! " — u He is now gone to the Minister of the Navy, 
and then he will go to his mother, who believes that he is 
dead ! " 

I went into the first grocery shop, got a guide, and found 
out where Ulrich's mother lived. Arriving there, I was afraid 
that she still was ignorant of the whole ; I therefore asked the 
girl, who opened the door, " How is it in the house, — are they 
sad or glad ? " Then the girl's face beamed : " They are glad ; 
the son is as if fallen down from the sky ! " and now I entered, 
without ceremony, the room where the whole family was sit- 
ting, dressed in mourning, — this very morning had they put 
on these dresses, — and the supposed dead son stood sound 
and safe among them ! I threw my arms round his neck, I 
could not do otherwise j I wept, and they felt and understood 
that I came not as a stranger. Relating this story to Miss 
Bremer, which she has also mentioned in her book, she be- 
came quite as touched as I had been. Her soul is as tender 
as it is noble and great. 

My mind was sick, I suffered in soul and body • I was in 
the mood of the people around me. Miss Bremer spoke of 
her beautiful country : I had also friends there ; I decided on 
a journey either up into Dalarne or perhaps to Haparanda for 
the midsummer day. Miss Bremer's midsummer journey had 
induced me to it \ she was indefatigable in writing letters for 
ine to her many friends through the whole realm of Sweden ; 



346 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

in that country one needs such help, for one cannot always find 
inns to put up in, but must seek a shelter with the minister or 
at the manor. Before my departure she arranged a parting 
feast in Swedish style, such as we in Copenhagen do not know 
or like ; there was a mystification, many guests, and among 
them H. C. Orsted, Martensen, and Hartmann. I received a 
beautiful silver cup, with the inscription, "A souvenir from 
Fredrika Bremer ! " a little poem accompanied it. 

On Ascension Day I went over to Helsingborg. The spring 
was beautiful, the young birch-trees smelt refreshingly, the 
sun shone warmly, the whole journey became a poem, and 
thus it appears also in the description given in my book, " In 
Sweden." 

Like a half English, half Dutch city, Gothaborg lay before 
me with its shining gas-flames, grand and lively : it is further 
advanced than other Swedish towns. The only theatre had 
made no progress, and the original piece they gave was dread- 
ful — I will rather call it rough. They told me that the 
principal part was. given by the author himself. What inter- 
ested me was that the whole action turned literally about a 
real person still living. An old, learned Master of Arts, — who 
for fun was called " Arab," on account of his knowledge of 
the Oriental languages, — was represented in the piece as de- 
sirous of being married ; anecdotes of the man's life were here 
introduced ; the piece itself was made up of fragmentary scenes 
without action or character; but the chief person was still 
living, and, as they said, was in the poor-house at Stockholm. 
The actor gave a true portrait of him, and there was a storm 
of applause. I went away after the second act : it is unpleas- 
ant to me to see a person made ridiculous when that is all 
that comes of it. 

I believe that the harbor and the magnificent bath-house 
with its marble bathing tubs, are due to the clever and worthy 
Commerce-counselor, Mr. Wieck, in whom I also found a vqry 
amiable host, and in whose rich and comfortable home I made 
acquaintance shortly with the most important persons of Goth- 
aborg, — among whom I must mention Miss Rolander, an 
accomplished novelist. 

I saw again the great waterfall of Trollhatta, and have 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 347 

tried since to paint it in words ; the impression it makes is 
always new and great \ but I have retained quite as freshly 
the impression that followed, — a meeting, namely, that took 
place outside of Wenersburg, where the steamer stopped for 
passengers. At the landing-place stood a little fifer, whom I 
had seen the year before with the Swedish troops in Funen ; 
he saluted me in a happy, familiar fashion, and was quite as- 
tonished to see me again in his country. When the Swedish 
soldiers were stationed at Glorup, they went out one day to 
drill j the boy was not well, and the old stewardess would not 
allow him to go : the child must be physicked and have some 
gruel ! The officer said that nothing ailed him. " I am his 
mother here ! " she said ; " the child is sick, and he shall not 
play the fife to-day ! " The boy asked after the mistress and 
the old Count. 

I arrived at Stockholm, and immediately changed my clothes 
that I might find our ambassador, from whom I expected to 
hear something of the war, which entirely occupied my mind. 
On the way there I was unfortunate enough to meet with Dr. 
Leo, a Danish-speaking German, whom I knew at Copenhagen, 
where I had received him kindly, and introduced him to Miss 
Bremer, who was then there on a visit ; he has not dealt 
fairly with her and me in his " Characters out of my Scandi- 
navian Portfolio," printed as a feuilleton in the " Novellen- 
Zeitung ; " he gives a kind of caricature-portrait of me drawn 
from that meeting in the streets of Stockholm, where I im- 
mediately, as he says, after having left the steamer, appeared 
on the promenade in party dress, with white kid gloves, on in 
order to be seen, and that my arrival might be announced in 
the newspapers the next day. He has done me wrong in that, 
he has given me pain ; but I will also remember that he 
has translated beautifully several of my books — has spoken 
in a friendly manner of me at other times and in other 
places. I hold out again my hand to him — and without 
" kid gloves." 

Lindblad, whose beautiful melodies Jenny Lind has scat- 
tered about the world, was one of the first I met \ he resem- 
bles her as much as a brother may resemble his sister ; he has 
the same appearance of melancholy, but the features are more 



348 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

powerful than hers \ he requested me to write an opera text 
for him, and I should like to do it, that it might be carried by 
his genius on the wings of popular song. In the theatre the 
Italian company gave one of its Italian operas, composed by 
Kapelmeister Foroni, " Queen Christina \ " the text was by 
the singer Casanova. It seemed to have rather grand har- 
monies than real melodies ; the conspiracy act was the most 
effective ; beautiful decorations and good costumes were not 
missing, and they had tried to make portrait-likenesses of 
Christina and Oxenstjerna ; the most peculiar thing of all 
was, however, to see in Christina's Swedish capital, Christina 
herself as a character on the stage. 

Through the book-seller, Magister Bagge, I was introduced 
into the " Literary Society," and at a feast there I was placed 
by the side of the poet, Chamberlain Beskow ; Dr. Leo also 
was a guest, and the president took occasion to propose 
the health of "the two excellent foreigners, Mr. Andersen 
from Copenhagen, the author of " The Improvisatore " and 
" Wonder Stories told for Children," and Dr. Leo from Leipsic, 
editor of " The Northern Telegraph." Later in the evening, 
Magister Bagge proposed a sentiment for me and for my 
country \ he bade me tell my countrymen of the enthusiasm 
and sympathy which the whole Swedish people bore toward 
us. I answered with words from one of my songs : — 

" Sharp as a sword lay Oresound 

Between the neighbor lands, 
When a rose-bush branch one morn was found, 

That joined the opposite strands ; 
Each rose breathed sweet of poetry, 

That now to heal old wounds was eager : 
Who wrought this wondrous magicry ? 

Tegner and Oehlenschlager ! " — 

and added : " Several Skalds have since appeared as well jn 
Sweden as in Denmark, and by these the two peoples have 
more and more learnt to understand each other, have felt the 
throbbing of the hearts ; and the beating of the Swedish heart 
has recently been felt deeply and tenderly by us, just as I feel 
it in this moment ! " Tears came into my eyes and hurras 
resounded round about ! 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 349 

Beskow accompanied me to King Oscar, who received me 
very kindly ; it was almost as if we had often spoken with each 
other, and yet this was the first time we had met. I thanked 
his Majesty for the Order of the North Star, with which he 
had graciously honored me ; he talked of Stockholm's resem- 
blance to Constantinople, of Lake Roxen's likeness to the 
southern part of Loch Lomond ; of the Swedish soldier's 
discipline and piety, and the King said that he had read 
what I had written of the Swedes' stay in Funen ; he ex- 
pressed a warm and sympathetic feeling for the Danish people 
and friendship for the King. We spoke of the war ; I said 
that it was fixed in the character of the Danish nation to hold 
fast to what was right, whether it be a small or a great matter. 
I felt how noble a disposition the King had. I told him that 
the good which the Danes saw him do for them would bring 
him the whole people's gratitude. We talked of the heredi- 
tary Grand Duke of Weimar, whom he also loved ; after that 
his Majesty asked me, when I came back from Upsala, where 
I was about to go, to dine with him. " The Queen also, my 
wife," he said, " knows your writings, and would like to be 
acquainted personally with you." 

After my return I was at the royal table. The Queen, who 
bears a strong resemblance to her mother, the Duchess of 
Leuchtenberg, whom I had seen at Rome, received me very 
kindly, and said that she had already long known me from my 
writings, and from " The Story of my Life." At the table I 
was seated by the side of Beskow, opposite the Queen. Prince 
Gustavus conversed briskly with me. After dinner I read for 
them " The Flax," " The Ugly Duckling," " The Story of a 
Mother," and " The False Collar." At the reading of " The 
Story of a Mother," I perceived tears in the eyes of the noble 
royal couple ; they expressed themselves with warmth and sym- 
pathy \ how amiable they both were, how straightforward and 
generous ! On my retiring, the Queen stretched out her hand 
to me, which I pressed to my lips ; she as well as the King 
honored me with a renewed invitation to come once more and 
read to them. A feeling of congeniality, if I may dare use the 
word, drew me especially to the amiable young Prince Gus- 
tavus \ his great, blue spiritual eyes possessed a kindness that 



350 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

exercised great power ; his unusual talent for music interested 
me ; there was something very attractive and confiding in his 
character, and we met on common ground, in our admiration 
for the Duke of Weimar ; we talked of him, of the war, of 
music and poetry. 

At my next visit to the palace, I was, in company with Bes- 
kow, summoned to the Queen's apartments, for an hour before 
dinner; the Princess Eugenie, the Crown Prince, and the 
Princes Gustavus and Augustus were there, and soon also the 
King came : " Poetry called him from business ! " he said. I 
read "The Fir-tree," "The Darning-Needle," "The Little 
Girl with Matches," and by request, "The Flax." The King 
followed me with great attention ; " the deep poetry that lies 
in these little narratives " — thus he was pleased to express 
himself — pleased him, and he said that he had read the 
stories on his journey to Norway ; amongst others, " The Fir- 
tree. All the three princes pressed my hand, and the King 
invited me to come on his birthday, the fourth of July, when 
Beskow should be my cicerone. 

They wished in Stockholm to show me public honors. I 
knew how I should be envied for it at home, and be the ob- 
ject of malicious remark \ and I was disheartened, and be- 
came feverish at the very thought of being the hero of an 
evening's feast ; I felt like a delinquent, and dreaded the many 
toasts and the long evening. 

I met there the famous and gifted Madame Carlen, — the 
writer under the fictitious name, " Wilhelmina," less known, 
but an excellent novelist ; also the actress Madame Strand- 
berg, and several other ladies who took part in the evening's 
entertainment. Madame Carlen invited me to walk with her; 
but we dared not go into the garden, where I wished to walk, 
because I saw there were not so many spectators there ; and 
we had to walk in a particular place, because they said the 
public wished to see Mr. Andersen. It was a well-meant 
arrangement, but for me a little painful ; I saw in imagination 
the whole performance represented at home in "The Corsair" 
in wood-cut. I knew that Oehlenschlager, whom people used 
to look up to with a kind of piety, had been represented 
there surrounded by Swedish ladies, when he made his visit in 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



351 



Stockholm. I perceived before me in the mall a whole crowd 
of children coming to meet us with a huge garland of flowers ; 
they strewed flowers for me and surrounded me, while a 
multitude of people gathered about and honored me by 
taking off their hats. My thoughts were. " You may be sure 
that at Copenhagen they will laugh at you : how many sneers 
you will have from them ! " I was quite out of humor, but was 
obliged to appear happy among these friendly, good people ; 
I turned the whole into jest, kissed one of the children, and 
chatted a little with another. At the supper-table the poet, 
Pastor Mellin, drank my health ; after having hinted at my 
poetic fertility, he recited some festive verses, written by the 
authoress " Wilhelmina," and now followed a beautiful poem 
by Mr. Carlen. 

I replied that I considered the kindness shown me as a 
payment in advance, which I hoped that God would grant me 
power to return by a work in which I might express my affec- 
tion to Sweden. And I have tried to redeem my promise. 
The writer of comedies, the actor John, recited. in dialect : " A 
Peasant Story from Dalarne \ " the singers of the Royal Theatre, 
Strandberg, Wallin, and Gunther sang Swedish songs; the 
orchestra played, and began with the Danish melody, " There 
is a Charming Land." At eleven o'clock I rode home ; glad 
at heart over these friendly souls, — glad, too, to go to rest. 

I was soon on my way to Dalarne. One of Fredrika Bre- 
mer's letters introduced me at Upsala to the poet Fahlkranz, 
the brother of the renowned landscape-painter, and honorably 
known by his poems " Ansgar " and " Noah's Ark \ M I met 
with my friend, the poet Bottger, married to TegneYs daughter 
Disa, — a happy couple, whose home seemed to be filled with 
sunshine and the poetry of family life. My room in the hotel 
bordered upon a large hall, where the students had just cele- 
brated a sexa (feast), and learning that I was a neighbor, a 
deputation came and invited me to hear them sing ; there was 
frolic and gayety and beautiful singing. I tried to select one, 
judging from appearances, whom I might with pleasure join ; 
a tall, pale young man pleased me, and I learned soon that I 
had made a right choice. He sang beautifully and with great 
distinctness \ he was the most genial among all ; I afterward 



352 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



heard that he was the poet Wennerberg, the composer of 
" Gluntarne." Afterward I heard him, together with Beronius, 
singing his modernized " Bellman-songs ; " it was at the 
Prefect's, where I met the most eminent men and women of 
Upsala, and found a very kind reception. I met here for the 
first time Atterbom, the Skald of " The Flowers," he who 
sang of " The Island of Beatitude ; " there is, Marmier says, a 
kind of freemasonry among poets ; they know and understand 
each other. I felt and acknowledged its truth at the home of 
that amiable old Skald. 

When travelling in Sweden one must have his own carriage ; 
I should have been obliged to buy such a one if the Prefect 
had not kindly offered me his carriage for the whole long 
journey; Professor Schroeder furnished me with "slanter" 
(small coins) and a whip ; Fahlkranz wrote an itinerary, and I 
began now the for me very peculiar travelling life, not unlike 
what one gets in parts of America, where the railroad net has 
not yet reached. It was contrary to what I was used to, and 
almost like the travelling life of a hundred years ago. 
Wreaths were fastened to May-poles for Midsummer night, 
when I reached the Lake of Siljan, that lay spread out before 
me 5 great willow-trees drooped above the quickly running 
Dal river, where wild swans were swimming ; beyond Mora, 
toward the boundary of Norway, the mountains appeared in 
bluish colors ; the whole life and stir, the picturesque dresses, 
the summer heat, all were so different from what I imagined 
it to be in the quiet, cold North \ and now what sport there 
was at the midsummer feast ! A multitude of boats arrived 
filled with nicely dressed church-people, old and young — even 
small babies ; it was a picture so lively, so grand, that I can 
but poorly present it in words. Professor Marstrand, in- 
fluenced by my description, and later by my verbal account of 
it, undertook two years in succession to make a journey here 
just at midsummer time, and reproduced on canvas that gay 
picture with its lively colors very skillfully. 

At L.eksand the traveller could still find an inn, but not 
higher up ; at Rattvek I was therefore obliged to conform to 
the custom of the country, and put up at the minister's, and 
there make my lodging ; but before he heard my name I was 






THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 353 

already welcomed. Afterward there was a feast, and the fol- 
lowing day, as I went with him to the neighboring watering- 
place, a crowd of children were standing at the bridge • they 
swung their caps ; they knew him who wrote the stories. 
" Andersen is up here in Dalarne ! " was yesterday the news 
that one of the little chaps had to tell ! I thought that 
moment of my poor little friends at Heriot's Hospital in 
Edinburgh ; I thought of Scotland's bairns, and now I was 
standing in the midst of the happy circle of children here in 
Dalarne, and my heart grew humble and tender, thankful to 
God, whose forgiveness I asked for those sighs and pains I 
used to utter to Him in my heavy hours, in griefs bitter 
moments. 

Old memories, the sunlight thrown by traditions and his- 
tory over a country, have sometimes a greater power and 
significance than its picturesque beauty. What here is fixed 
in my memory is the faithfulness of the Dalkarle people, Gus- 
tavus Vasa's flight, and his whole demeanor \ here also, almost 
unaltered, is the scene of the romantic part of his life in all its 
grandeur and solitariness. As far as I was able, I have in the 
group of pictures " In Sweden " represented the impressions 
made upon me. Those immensely large and extensive wood- 
tracts, with solitary charcoal pits ; deep, clear, wood-lakes, 
where the linnaea blooms over the rocky stones, and where the 
wild swans are building their nests, were something new and 
marvelous to me ; I had a feeling as if I were moved back 
centuries of time. I visited Fahlun, with its copper-mines and 
its whole beautiful environs, and from here I recollect a little 
event, such as we count among accidents, but which by many 
people are yet placed upon a higher ground. Among my 
Swedish pictures I have given it the title: "What the Straws 
said." It is no invention, it is an event. 

In the Prefect's garden at Fahlun sat a circle of young girls ; 
they took in sport four grass-straws in their hands and tied 
them tw r o and two together at the ends ; when it happens 
that all the four straws form a coherent whole, the popular 
belief is that what the binder thought of shall be fulfilled. 
They could not any of them succeed in this, and they wished 
that I would try it. " But I don't believe in it ! " I answered ; 
23 






354 THE ST0RY CF MY LIFE. 

nevertheless I took four straws, and promised that in case 
they came out right I would tell them what I wished. I tied, 
opened my hand, and the straws hung together; the blood 
involuntarily rushed up into my cheeks, I became supersti- 
tious, and directly against all reason I believed in it, because 
I wanted to do so ; and what was the wish ? they asked. I 
told it : " That Denmark might obtain a great victory and 
soon get an honorable peace ! " — " May God grant it ! " ex- 
claimed they all ; and the prophecy of the straws that day was 
— accidentally — a truth \ there soon was reported in Sweden 
the battle of Fredericia ! 

By way of Gefle I returned again to Upsala and Danne- 
mora, whose dizzy mines I beheld from above \ I had before 
visited Rammel's mountain in the Harzt, Baumann's cave, the 
saltworks of Hallein, and the catacombs under Rome and at 
Malta ; there was no pleasure in any of these places, gloomy, 
oppressing, a horrible nightmare. I do not like to go under 
the earth before my dead body is carried down there. 

At Old Upsala I alighted to see the now excavated hills, 
which bear the names of Odin, Thor, and Freyr. When I was 
here, thirteen years ago, they lay still closed as they had been 
thousands of years. The old woman who had the key to the 
entrance of the hill, and whose deceased aunt then filled the 
horn of mead for me, was happy to hear my name, and now 
she would also, she said, illuminate for me, as she did for the 
noblemen who had been here from Stockholm. While she 
made her preparations I mounted the hill alone with prayer 
and thanks to God for all his goodness in the days gone by, 
since I was last here, and these words went from my lips, 
" Thy will be done toward me ! " Thus do I go to church 
unconsciously, now in the woods, now upon the graves of for- 
mer days, and now in my little solitary room. When I de- 
scended she had placed small tapers round about the gate- 
way, and I saw the old urn containing, as she said, the bbnes 
of Odin, or rather the bones of his offspring, those of the 
" Ynglinga-generation." Round about were spread ashes of 
burnt animals. 

After again greeting my friends at Upsala I drew near 
Stockholm, where I had been received in the house of the 






THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 355 

aged Madame Bremer as if I were her child, when the gifted 
but very sick Agathe was living, the sister of Fredrika 
Bremer, to whom all the letters from America are written, and 
who was dead on Fredrika's return. There was comfort and 
richness in the old mother's house, where I sometimes met 
with the great family circle, whose members belong to the best 
people in Sweden \ it was very interesting to me to. see the real 
difference from all those stories that circulated in Denmark 
and abroad about this authoress's family and conditions. 
When she first appeared in public it was said she was 
governess in a noble family, when she was really proprietor 
of the estate " Aosta," free and independent. 

In a foreign city I feel a necessity not only to pay my 
respects to the living men of genius and honor ; I must also 
visit the graves of those dear or famous who are dead, and 
carry them a flower or pluck one from their graves. At 
Upsala I had been at the grave of Geijer ; the monument 
was not yet erected ; the grave of Torneros was overgrown 
with grass and nettles. At Stockholm I went to the graves 
where repose Nicander and Stagnelius. I drove out to Solna, 
near Stockholm, and visited its little church-yard where Ber- 
zelius, Choraeus, Ingelmann, and Crusell are buried \ in the 
larger one is the tomb of Wallin. 

My principal home at Stockholm was indeed that of the 
poet, Baron Beskow, who was ennobled by Carl Johan ; he 
belongs to those amiable characters from whom there seems 
to radiate a mild lustre over life and nature ; he is kind- 
hearted and full of talent \ that one may see by his draw- 
ings and his music. The old man has a voice remarkably soft 
and fresh ; his position as poet is known, and his tragedies 
have also become popular in Germany by Oehlenschlager's 
translations ; he is loved by his king, and honored by all ; he 
is, besides, a man of exceedingly high cultivation, a faithful 
and dear friend. 

The last day of my stay at Stockholm was King Oscar's 
birthday ; I was honored with an invitation to the feast ; the 
King, the Queen, and all the Princes were very kind. When I 
took leave, I was touched as if I were leaving dear ones. 

Oehlenschlager mentions in his " Life," part IV., page 85, 



356 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Count Saltza, and one becomes curious to know who the man 
was, but the secret is not told Oehlenschlager says, " One of 
Bishop Miinter's acquaintances once made me a call in those 
days. He was a tall, stout Swede, who, on entering, gave his 
name, but I did not hear it. As I was ashamed to ask him 
again, I hoped to hear it in the course of conversation, or 
perhaps to learn from what he said who he was. He told me 
that he had come to ask me how I liked the subject for a vau- 
deville which he intended to write. He gave it to me, and it 
was a very pretty one ; I held on to that in my mind, and 
thought, of course, he must be a vaudeville poet. Then he 
spoke of Miinter as an old friend of his, " For I must tell 
you," he continued, " I have studied theology, and have trans- 
lated the Revelation of St. John." A vaudeville poet, I now 
thought, who is also a theologian. " Miinter is a freemason 
too," he continued ; " all his freemasonry he learnt from me ; 
because I am Master of the Chair." I began mentally to 
reckon up : vaudeville poet, theologian, Master of the Chair. 
Now he began to talk about Carl Johan, whom he praised 
much, and said, " I know him well ! I have drunk many a 
good glass with him." I said to myself, vaudeville poet, theo- 
logian, Master of the Chair, a bosom friend of Carl Johan. 
He continued, " Here in Denmark people do not wear their 
orders ; to-morrow I go to church and I shall wear mine." 
" That you may do ! " I answered ; and he went on, " I have 
them all ! " I said to myself : vaudeville poet, theologian, 
Master of the Chair, bosom friend of Carl Johan, Knight of 
the Order of Seraphim. At last the stranger spoke of his son, 
whom he had taught to know that their ancestor was the first 
upon the walls of Jerusalem at its conquest. Now it was 
made clear to me that he might be the Count of Saltza. And 
it really was he." 

So far Oehlenschlager. 

Beskow presented me in the antechamber of King Oscar to 
the old Count Saltza, who immediately, with Swedish hospi- 
tality, invited me on my way home to visit him at his estate 
of Mem, if he was there when the steamboat passed ; if not, 
then at his estate at Saeby, near Linkoping, which, further 
on my journey, was situated not far from the canal. I re- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 357 

garded it as one of those kind words which we so often hear 
and did not think to make use of his invitation • but in the 
morning on my journey home, when we left the Lake of 
Roxen, and were going through the thirteen water-gates at 
Wreta Church, whose royal tombs I have painted in " The 
Picture-book without Pictures," the composer Josephson, with 
whom I had lived, as I have before mentioned, in Sorrento 
and at Capri, and lately had met at Upsala, came suddenly on 
board the steamer ; he was Count Saltza's guest at Saeby, 
and having calculated by what steamer I should come on 
the canal route, he was dispatched to the locks here to fetch 
me off in a carriage. It was very kind of the old Count ; I 
gathered my luggage together in a hurry, and in a violent rain- 
storm we drove to Saeby to the castle, built in Italian style, 
where the old Count Saltza resided with his cultivated and 
amiable daughter, the widow-baroness Fock. 

" There is an intellectual relationship between us ! " said 
the old man ; "that I immediately felt when I saw you! we 
were not strangers to each other ! " He received me very 
kindly, and the old gentleman with his many peculiarities be- 
came soon dear to me by his genius and loveliness. He told 
me of his acquaintance with kings and princes ; he had corre- 
sponded with Goethe and Jung Stilling. He told me that his 
ancestors had been Norwegian peasants and fishermen • they 
went to Venice, rescued Christian captives, and Charles the 
Great made them princes of Saltza. That little fishing-place, 
situated where now St. Petersburg stands, had belonged to his 
father's grandfather, and it is told me, that Saltza once had 
said in joke to the Emperor of Russia, when he was at Stock- 
holm, " That is really my ancestors' ground upon which the 
Imperial city is built ! " and the Emperor is said to have 
answered merrily, "Well, then, come and take it!" There is 
a tradition that the Empress Catharine I. was Swedish, and 
it is confirmed by Saltza's accounts and records ; he traces 
the history of her childhood into the life of his father's grand- 
father • the notes he has made about it are very interesting, 
and he relates them thus. 

One day his father read a compendium of the history of 
Russia, but he soon laid the book aside and said that it was 



358 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

not as he read ; he knew much better about the Empress 
Catharine, and then he told this story : " My father's grand- 
father was the General Hans Abraham Kruse, colonel of the 
Green Dragoons. When he was lieutenant-colonel and lived 
on the lieutenant-colonel's place, 'Broten,' it happened that 
his valet de chambre, Jean Rabe, wished to marry his wife's 
waiting-maid, Catharine Almpaph ; Madame Kruse, born An- 
nike Sinclair, prepared a brilliant wedding, and even had 
the nuptial bed edged with golden lace, the same that 
Madame Annike, as lady at the court of Charles X.'s 
queen, had worn on her purple robe ; it became afterwards 
an adage of the family, ' As stately as Jean Rabe's nuptial 
bed.' Jean became field-sergeant of Elfsborg's regiment, but 
died, as also his wife, very soon after, leaving only one daugh- 
ter, Catharina, who was brought to the old lady Kruse at 
Hokalla, where she remained two years. Then it came about 
that the cousin of Madame Annike, the Countess Tisenhusen, 
came visiting and found Catharina, who was eight years of 
age, to be a handsome and winning child, and therefore took 
her home with her ; they spent the winter together at Stock- 
holm, and in the spring they made a voyage to Pomerania, 
where the Countess was to receive a great inheritance ; but 
on arriving at the island of Riigen, a guard-ship which was 
stationed there forbade them to go ashore, as the plague had 
broken out there. They returned to Stockholm, and spent 
the following winter in Government Street in the so-called 
house Anchor Crown. An aunt of the Countess died at Re- 
val, and she went over there in the month of May, notwith- 
standing the .Russians just then often invaded and devastated 
Esthland, which was the Countess's native place ; for this rea- 
son, also, she always spoke German and kept German help ; 
Catharina was, of course, also obliged to learn that language. 
They made a favorable voyage, and a stay of three days. 
Catharina was sent out of town on an errand, and returning 
home she found written upon the door of the house that no- 
body was allowed to enter as the plague was there. Catha- 
rina cried aloud ; the porter answered from within that the 
Countess and nine other persons had already perished, and 
he himself was shut in. Catharina ran weeping and in des- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 359 

peration up the street, when she met the minister, pastor 
Gliick of Majam, who had just come to the city in order to 
get a nurse for his little son, who was to be weaned \ the 
minister saw the distress of the well-formed, ruddy girl, and 
asked what was the matter with her. Being told her story, 
and hearing that she had not been in the house, he engaged 
her as nurse, and Catharina in her forsaken condition ac- 
cepted the place, although she had before been accus- 
tomed to better life. She was soon a great favorite in the 
parsonage, and the minister's wife at last could not do with- 
out her at all. Count Saltza's grandfather's father^ when he 
was hunting in that part of the country, passed a night at 
the parsonage. After the battle of Norra, in the time of 
Charles XII., Esthland was sacked by the Russians, who 
were commanded by Anesen Laputschin ; he set fire to 
the church of Majam, took the whole tenantry on Saltza's 
estate, and sent away the faithful vassals to Siberia \ while 
the parsonage stood in flames, he saw for the first time 
Catharina, and kept her as his own share of the plunder. 
Menschikow, having become prince and the favorite of the 
Czar, remarked the beauty of Catharina when he saw her 
at Laputschin's house, where she waited on them ; the day 
after she was sent to him as his bondwoman ; he did not 
care much about women, and considered her but a nice ser- 
vant-girl. One day she was scouring the floor, when the 
Emperor entered, but as Menschikow was not at home, he 
turned to go away again, when he saw upon the table the 
plate of comfits, which was always set before him when he 
came. He took of them ; Catharina did not know him, and 
continued to scour the floor ; he looked at her and brushed 
aside with his hand the hair on her forehead. ' You are a 
beautiful girl ! ' said he ; she blushed, he caressed her, gave 
her a kiss and went away. 

" Catharina, very much displeased, told Menschikow of the 
unknown officer who had come, had eaten of the comfits, and 
allowed himself to kiss her. When she had given a descrip- 
tion of him, Menschikow understood that the Emperor had 
been there, and took advantage of the meeting. Orders had 
just then been given to wear a new costume of a different kind 



360 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

from what had formerly been worn • Catharina was dressed 
in one of those appointed for women, which was very becom- 
ing to her, and very elegant besides ; the head-dress resembled 
much that of the Dutch peasants. In this attire she was to 
deliver to the Emperor a plate of comfits, consisting of boiled 
fruits, together with a carefully expressed letter, insinuating 
that the Czar might not disdain the comfits and her who 
brought them." How she aftenvards became the Czar's con- 
sort, the story goes on to tell. 

The grandfather's father came back during her reign from 
his Siberian captivity, where he had been sixteen years. 
There was just then a great festival in the Imperial garden 
at Moscow ; he was invited to it, and came in attendance with 
the old Knight Gagarin, who, during his captivity, had been 
a true friend to Saltza. Herr Gagarin could not endure Men- 
schikow, and when he entered and Menschikow did not ac- 
knowledge his salutation, he said : " Did you not observe that 
I saluted you ? " Menschikow did not answer, but smiled con- 
temptuously, and the old man began then to use violent lan- 
guage. Menschikow called upon his people, who fell upon 
the old man and trod upon him. Saltza, defending his friend, 
was now also attacked! Catharina observed it from her ele- 
vated place, recognized the voice of her friend of earlier days, 
and cried to Menschikow : " If you dare touch a hair upon 
Saltza's head, your's shall to-morrow be put into the Krem- 
lin ! " And the fight was ended. 

Afterwards Saltza became president of the Board of Trade, 
and was always in favor with the Empress ; his family is still 
to be found in Russia. Old Saltza passes for one who sees 
ghosts. Carl Johan, who, according to Lenormann's predic- 
tion was to become king, placed great confidence in him, and 
the marvel is told that the king's day of death occurred upon 
the same date as Saltza had predicted. Here in that great 
hall of knights at Saeby, where now Saltza and I were seated, 
Carl Johan and Queen Eugenie had often dined: round 
about hung pictures of Saltza's knightly ancestors ; the furni- 
ture consisted of chairs and pieces in antiquated style ; the 
large hall was heated by two fire-places. Here I sat with 
the worthy old gentleman • we talked of spirits, and he told 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 36 I 

me, with great seriousness and belief in its truth, how his 
grandfather had appeared to him in the night, asked him if 
he would go with him to see the heaven of God, and added : 
"'But then you must first try to die.' He touched me," 
said the worthy old man, " and I fell as in a swoon. ' Is not 
death something else than this ? ' — i No,' said my grandfather, 
and then I stood in the court of God's heaven. It was the 
most delicious garden." 

The description of it was, as Saltza gave it, entirely of some 
earthly place ; I could not perceive anything new. He met 
there his brother and sister ■ the latter was, when she died, 
only a little child ; he did not recognize her until she said 
who she was. " * It is very well you came now,' said she. 
1 To-day it is the anniversary day of Christ's name, and I shall 
go from the children's heaven into the great God's heaven ! ' " 

" But," replied I, " why does not the child go directly into 
God's great heaven, for so we are told in the Bible." — 
" Very good, but I have seen it ! " said he. Yet what he told 
of God was very beautiful. " Standing there in heaven, I 
perceived a flash of light that I could not endure ; I threw 
myself down, there was a sound of music, such as I never 
had hea^d before ; I had a feeling of happiness, I felt an ex- 
ceeding joy! 'What is that ?' said I. 'It was God, who 
passed by ! ' answered my grandfather." The old man told 
me all this with an earnestness and conviction that made a 
peculiar impression upon me. " There above I gained knowl- 
edge of all that shall happen ! " said he ; " I know of the end 
of all things ; at the time I was only fifteen years old." 

During my stay at Saeby the old Count's anniversary day, 
" Frederick's Day," occurred ; it was interesting to see the 
Swedish manner in which it was celebrated. In one of the 
rooms down-stairs was erected an arch of beech-laaves, and 
above his monogram was placed a beautiful crown of beech- 
leaves, and roses instead of jewels. Sitting at the coffee-table 
we heard a report out on the lake ; one of the servants entered, 
and, with a loud voice, almost as if he had learned his words 
by heart, he announced, while he could not help at the same 
time betraying with a smile that the whole was a comedy, " A 
*hip, the North Star, is riding at anchor without, and has 



362 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

foreign sailors on board ! " They were now invited to come 
in j shots were heard from the ship, the steward, his wife, and 
two daughters entered. These were the foreign sailors, who 
arrived from his estate on the other side of the lake. At the 
dinner- table were several other stewards and many other offi- 
cers of his estates, and families from the neighboring estates 
came with their congratulations. Outside of the castle marched 
and were drawn up in ranks all the school children, girls 
and boys, each of them holding a little green branch ; they 
were conducted by the schoolmaster, who made a speech in 
verse to the old Count. He stepped out before them and was 
received with a resounding hurra. I observed that the school- 
master got money, the children coffee and meat, and afterward 
were permitted to dance in the large front room, where a 
peasant played the violin ; the Baroness went kindly amongst 
them, showed the peasants the halls and rooms of the castle, 
and treated them plentifully with eating and drinking. Just 
then the mail arrived with letters and newspapers. " News 
from Denmark ; a victory at Fredericia ! " was shouted tri- 
umphantly ; it was the first printed and complete information 
about it ; all were interested in it. I seized the list of killed, 
and wounded. 

In honor of the Danish victory old Saltza opened a bottle 
of champagne ; the daughter had in a hurry contrived a Dan- 
nebrog flag, which was fastened up. The old man who be- 
fore had spoken of the ancient hatred between Swedes and 
Danes, and preserved three Danish balls, — of which one had 
wounded his father, the second his grandfather, and the third 
had killed his grandfather's father, — now in the time of broth- 
erhood raised his full glass for old Denmark, and spoke so 
kindly and beautifully of the honor and victory of the Danes 
that tears* rose in my eyes. There was among the guests a 
German governess quite old. I believe she was from Bruns- 
wick. She had lived many years in Sweden, and hearing now 
what Saltza in his speech said about the Germans, she burst 
out weeping, and said innocently to me : " I cannot help it ! " 
When I had returned my thanks for Saltza's toast, the first 
thing I had to do was to give her my hand and say, " There 
will soon come better days ; Germans and Danes shall again 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 363 

grasp one another's hands as we now do, and drink a glass 
for the blessed peace \ " and so we clinked the glasses to- 
gether. 

The sympathy I found here for Denmark and the Danes 
was shown throughout the country, and as a Dane myself 
those expressions were dear to me. At Linkoping I alighted 
at Professor Omann's, and was surprised to see in the garden 
so many young men assembled in order to give me a festive 
reception ; the poet Ridderstad had written three beautiful 
songs, the first written to the melody of " There is a Charming 
Land," brought me " A Greeting to Denmark." While they 
intoned the song the most splendid rainbow lighted up the 
firmament, as a token of peace. I was extremely touched by 
it, and now there sounded a song to " The Dannebrog." At 
intervals between the songs, affectionate speeches were de- 
livered touching Sweden's love to Denmark and their joy at 
the victory ; among the speeches was one in honor of those 
killed at Fredericia ; I was moved to tears, I felt so Danish 
in mind. Swedish and Danish flags waved, and when I de- 
parted for Berg, where I was to go on board the steamer the 
next morning, Ridderstad and many other friends accompanied 
me with songs and greetings. 

I intended to stay at Motala a couple of days ; all the way 
hereto may rightly be called " The Gotha Canal's Garden." 
There is a beautiful blending of Swedish and Danish nature, 
rich beech woods bending over the lakes, rocks, and roaring 
streams. A young bachelor offered me, in the inn near the 
manufactory, his comfortable little room, and moved him- 
self to a friend's, that I might find myself provided for, and 
that was the first time we had met. It was Mr. C. D. Ny- 
gren, since deceased, a man of a poetic nature, a friend of 
Fredrika Bremer, and an admirer of my poetry. The river 
Motala flowed below my windows, among leafy trees and pines, 
so swiftly, so green, and transparent that I could distinguish in 
the depth every stone, every fish ; upon the opposite bank of 
the canal is the tomb of Platen, which is saluted with cannon 
shots by all the passing steamboats. There in the country I 
had a kind, fresh letter from Dickens, who had received and 
read " The Two Baronesses ; " it was a white day for me ; most 



364 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

charming roses, brought for me, made a splendid show upon 
my table. 

From here I made an excursion to the ancient Vadstena, 
whose rich castle is now but a large granary, . — whose mighty 
monastery is a bedlam. At my departure from Motala I was 
staying in the little inn down by the bridge ; I was to set out 
early in the morning and had therefore gone to bed early ; I 
fell asleep immediately, but awoke on hearing beautiful singing 
from many voices. I got up ; it sounded deliciously ; I opened 
the door and asked the girl if there were any high guests here 
to whom the serenade was given. " Of course it is for you, 
sir ! " she said. " For me ! " I exclaimed, and could not 
understand it. They sang : " There is a Charming Land ! " 
The song was for me ; I will not say for the poet Andersen, 
but for Andersen as a Dane ; it was love to the Danes that 
also here burst out in flower for me. The mechanics at 
Motala had learned that I had returned here again from 
Vadstena, and that I was to start again next morning ; those 
good people had come to give me a token of their esteem and 
sympathy. I now went out to them, and shook hands with 
the nearest of them ; I was deeply affected and thankful ; of 
course I could not sleep all the night after. 

At each place I reached, every day was like a festival ! 
Everywhere was shown sympathy for Denmark so affection- 
ately, so faithfully, that the Danish people can hardly form an 
idea of it. I met friends and hospitality ; even the little town 
of Mariestad would not let me go without it. Everywhere I was 
invited to move into the houses of families and to be their 
guest ; they offered me carriage and horses, in short they 
showed me all attention possible. I spent several days at 
Kinnekulle, in the society of the senior Count Hamilton ; and 
also at Blomberg, where one of the sons is married to the 
daughter of Geijer, who resembles very much Jenny Lind even 
in the sound of her voice ; she sung beautifully all her father's 
songs. Little Anna, the only child of the house, usually 
bashful toward all strangers, came immediately to me \ we 
seemed to know each other at once. Wenersborg also offered 
me a circle of friends, who took me to the beautiful environs, 
and at Trolhatta the stay was prolonged for several days ; 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 365 

here in the wood near the sluices I found a blessed home 
with Lieutenant-colonel Warberg and his wife ; they cared 
comfortably and kindly for me. 

From Gothaborg I made an excursion to the island of 
Marstrand, where Fredrika Bremer visited her sister Agatha, 
when she made use of the baths. The many small rocky 
islands on .the Swedish coast form excellent harbors with deep 
waters \ the wild rose bloomed upon those sun-heated rocks. 
The Italian opera troop from Stockholm gave concerts in the 
forenoon ; I found here the liveliness of a southern watering- 
place. Fredrika Bremer was going to America j she accom- 
panied me to Gothaborg ; on board the ship a company 
gathered around us and sang Swedish and Danish songs. 
" There is a Charming Land," seemed to be the favorite song 
of the Swedes ; it was sung again as a farewell to me. 

A few days after I was again in Denmark. My book u In 
Sweden," perhaps the most carefully written of my works, 
gives the intellectual result of this journey, and I am inclined 
to believe that it displays better than any other of my writings 
those points most characteristic in me : pictures of nature, the 
wonderful, the humorous, and lyric, as far as the last may be 
given in prose. The Swedish paper, " Bore," was the first 
that gave a critique of the book. 

At home, where the critics of late, not only had adopted a 
more decent tone, when my works were spoken of, but showed 
also greater attention to them and more true acknowledgment, 
my book was mentioned with praise and good-will, especially 
the chapter " A Story." 

In England, where " In Sweden " was published at the same 
time as the Danish original, I met the same good-will, the 
same generous criticism, as almost always has been the case, 
until I met an attack, and that from a person from whom I 
least expected it, — from her who introduced my writings into 
England, and who received me there with such great friendli- 
ness, — Mary Howitt ; it surprised and grieved me, and was 
something so unexpected that I could scarcely believe it. I 
have before spoken of our meeting in London ; how, during my 
stay there, my friends who had an interest in me, so arranged 
it for me that my works, from the favor they had received in 



366 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

great England, might also bring me some advantage in pecu- 
niary matters. 

The estimable and clever book-seller, Richard Bentley, con- 
tinued to be my publisher, and I was to send him from Copen- 
hagen an English manuscript. I did this, and Mary Howitt did 
not translate either " The Two Baronesses " or " In Sweden ; " 
but that this should make her angry with me, and lead her to 
criticise me now most severely in her and William Howitt's 
work, — " The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, " 
— that I did not expect. All the Danish poets, great and 
small, are kindly mentioned in it, but not I, who once seemed 
to be her favorite ; she writes, having first spoken kindly of 
such of my books as she has translated : — 

" But Andersen's subsequent productions have been fail- 
ures ; those published in England have dropped nearly dead 
from the press ; and the reason for this is very obvious. An- 
dersen is a singular mixture of simplicity and worldliness. 
The child-like heart which animates his best compositions 
appears to your astonished vision in real life, in the shape of 
a petit mditre sighing after the notice of princes. The poet is 
lost to you in the egotist ; and once perceiving this, you have 
the key to the charm of one or two romances and the flatness 
of the rest; for he always paints himself — his own mind, 
history, and feelings. This delights in a first story, less in the 
second, and not at all in the third ; for it is but crambe refie- 
tita. Perhaps much of Andersen's fame in this country arose 
from the very fact of the almost total ignorance here of the 
host of really great and original writers which Denmark pos- 
sessed ; Andersen stood forward as a wonder from a country of 
whose literary affluence the British public was little cognizant, 
while in reality he was but an average sample of a numerous 
and giant race." 

How entirely different had the same gifted lady conceived 
and mentioned me a few years before when I visited London ; 
then she wrote in " Howitts' Journal " a most cordial welcome 
of the Danish poet to English soil. 

How shall I be able to compare those earlier judgments 
with the later, written by a lady of genius, and as it appears 
also of affection for me and my muse ? On Miss Bremer's 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 367 

return from America she passed through London, and I asked 
her about Mary Howitt, whom I knew she had visited. 

" The good Mary Howitt," she said," spoke so kindly of you, 
spoke with tears, saying, 'he will not have anything to do 
with me ! ' " How can I understand those words so gener- 
ously spoken and those so harshly written. Well, they have 
perhaps their origin in a momentary bad humor, that we all 
may have ; she may perhaps also have changed her opinion of 
me, as she once did. There is no anger in my mind, and I 
stretch forth my hand as a friend desiring reconciliation. 

The novel " The Two Baronesses " was nevertheless well 
received, and " In Sweden " not less. The very same year that 
Mary Howitt pronounced her severe judgment, the last book 
obtained even the honor of being made popular ■ for in con- 
nection with " The Story of my Life," it was published in " The 
Popular Library," which is generally known under the name, 
" one shilling editions," and sold by thousands. The transla- 
tion is excellent, and the translator, Kenneth MacKenzie, ex- 
presses himself in a postscript so warmly and generously, that 
Mary Howitt's sharp words are blunted. The " Athenaeum's " 
criticism of the last book of mine published in England, " A 
Poet's Day Dreams," as they call my stories, indicates the 
same sympathy and favor : — 

" By the form and fashion of this little book (dedicated to 
Mr. Dickens) it appears to be meant for a Christmas and 
New Year's gift. But it will be welcome in any month of 
flowers or harvests, or at the canonical time, — 

c when icicles hang by the wall ; ' — 

since it may be read and remembered by poets and by the 
children of poets long after this busy year and its busy people 
shall have been gathered to their fathers. Our antipathy to 
sentimentality (as the word is commonly understood) needs 
not to be again expressed. For what is false and sickly, be 
it ever so graceful, ever so alluring, we have neither eye, ear, 
nor heart ; but for sentiment, — as something less deep than 
passionate emotion, less high than enthusiastic faith, less wild 
than the meteoric extravagances of Genius, — we have a liking 
apart and peculiar, — and those who have not, relish Imagina- 



368 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

tion only by halves. For quaintness, humor, and tenderness, 
Mr. Andersen's little tales are unique. Let those who desire 
warrant for our assertion read ' Good for Nothing/ ' Grief of 
Heart/ 'Under the Willow-tree/ and 'It is very true/ in 
this volume. Let any who accuse these of being small, try to 
produce anything which shall be so complete, so delicate, and 
so suggestive. They are on the most tiny scale, it is true, and 
mostly concern tiny things and trite affections ; but they are, 
nevertheless, real works of art, and, as such, deserve a warm 
welcome, from all who love art and its works." 

The new year 1850 opened with a grief for me, — a grief also 
for Denmark and for all that is beautiful. My first letter that 
year to Weimar announces it : — 

" Oehlenschlager is dead ; he died the twentieth of January, 
the very day of the death of King Christian VIII. ; yes, almost 
the same hour of death. I went out twice late in the night to 
Oehlenschlager, passing the palace. I knew from the doc- 
tors that he was near death, and it was strange to me to look 
up at the dark windows of the palace and think, that two years, 
ago I came here anxious for my dear king, and now I came 
again with similar feelings for a king — a poet-king. His 
death was without pain ; his children stood around him, and 
he asked them to read aloud a scene from his tragedy, ' Socra- 
tes/ where he speaks of immortality and assurance of eternal 
life ; he was quiet, and praying that the agony might not be 
hard, laid down his head and died. I saw his corpse \ the 
jaundice had given it the appearance of a bronze statue, and 
nothing showed death • the forehead was beautiful, the ex- 
pression noble. On the twenty-sixth of January the people 
carried him to the grave, — the people in the true sense of that 
word, for there were public functionaries, — students, sailors, 
soldiers, all classes, who by turns carried the bier all the long 
way to Fredericksborg, where he was born, and where he wished 
to be buried. The real funeral services took place in Our 
Lady's Church. The funeral committee had requested two 
poets to write the cantata ; one was old Grundtvig and the 
other was myself. The Bishop of Seeland gave the funeral 
address. For the commemoration at the theatre there was 
appointed to be played his tragedy, ' Hakon Jarl/ and the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 369 

scene of ' Socrates/ which was read to Oehlenschlager at the 
hour of his death ! " 

To my great* joy Oehlenschlager became in his last years 
very mild and kind toward me, and warmly expressed his ap- 
preciation of my work. One day when I was a little grieved 
at some sneer against me in one of the papers, he gave me 
his little North Star decoration, which order I had received 
from the Swedish king on the burial day of Christian VIII. 
" I have worn that decoration/' Oehlenschlager said ; " I give 
it to you as a remembrance of me ! You are a true poet, I 
say, let others jabber as they will ! " and he reached me the 
North Star decoration, which I own and keep. 

The fourteenth of November, 1849, there had been a festi- 
val in his honor at the Marksmen's Hall, and it was but a short 
time after that this funeral commemoration followed. We know 
that the poet himself had requested the performance of his 
tragedy " Socrates ; " this, however, was not granted. It is 
strange that the great poet, when dying, should think of the 
honor to be paid him. I would rather wish that, like Lamar- 
tine's " dying poet," when reminded of his great fame here upon 
earth, he might have answered, " Do you believe that the swan, 
flying toward the sun, thinks of the little shadow its flapping 
wings throw upon the waves ? " The theatre was crowded 
with people on the occasion, and all were dressed in mourning. 
The first rows of boxes were covered with mourning-crape, 
and Oehlenschlager's seat in the parquet was distinguished 
by crape and a laurel-wreath. " How good that is of Hei- 
berg ! " said a lady ; " it would touch Oehlenschlager himself, 
if he saw it ! " and I could not forbear answering, " Yes, it 
would please him to see that he still had a seat ! " When 
Heiberg entered upon his office as director of the theatre, 
all free seats for poets, composers, ci-devant directors, and 
different functionaries had been reduced to the end places 
and corners of each of the few benches we have in the par- 
quet, and to those were also admitted all the singers, actors, 
and dancers, so that if all were coming, not the third part of 
them could get places even if they were standing up. 

Oehlenschlager, while he lived, went to the theatre every 
night, but when it happened that he did not come punctually, 
24 



37o 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



and that none of the persons seated would show him the atten- 
tion of offering him his place, he was obliged to stand ; once 
or twice he turned to me, and asked in a joking but pitiful 
tone, i{ How dare I be here ? " To-night it seems he had a 
place. It was the same seat he had appointed for himself 
when he was one of the directors ; Thorwaldsen also had such 
a seat. Heiberg may be excused, because the Diet ordered 
him to reduce the number of free seats ; but for Oehlenschla- 
ger, the first dramatic poet of the stage, it seems to me that 
he ought to have had a seat. A drop of bitterness went 
through me at this commemoration, but it was not the first 
time such had happened to me at the Danish theatre. 

I now turn to another of our theatres, that of the Casino, or, as 
expressed by one of our authors, " Only Casino ! " Copenha- 
geners have had for the last two years a people's theatre, which 
has grown up, we may almost say, without knowing it ; nobody 
thought of it, at least of its making any progress. Mr. Over- 
skou had, among many others, thought, spoken, and written of 
such a theatre ; but that was only something on paper. At 
that time we possessed a young and able man, endowed with 
a remarkable talent of carrying out his projects, even though 
he was not himself a man of means. He was a real genius 
in his operations ; he knew how to contrive a " Tivoli " for 
the Copenhageners, which may be compared with, and perhaps 
still surpassed in design and plan all other similar places of 
amusement ; he procured us also " Casino," where people at 
cheap rates had music and comedy, and the city a large and 
tasteful place for its most frequented concerts and masquer- 
ades, — soon a place for the most popular amusements. That 
man was George Carstensen : his name and ability come back 
to us from America of late, as the one who, in connection 
with Ch. Gildemeister, built the famous Crystal Palace in New 
York. Carstensen was very good-natured, and that I believe 
was his greatest fault; he was very often ridiculed, Called 
" maitre de plaisir ; " nevertheless his activity was of perma- 
nent usefulness, and is so still. When the Casino building 
was raised, the theatre was not looked upon as the main 
thing j that came about under the direction of the active Mr. 
Lange, and little by little grew in the favor of the public, and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 37 1 

in its own strength. There was a time when the Casino shares 
stood so low that some of them, it is said, were sold for a glass 
of punch, but the whole soon took a great start. 

The repertory was very limited ; no Danish author of ce- 
lebrity had shown any desire or will to write a work for this 
stage. Mr. Lange proposed to me to show my sympathy, and 
my essay was successful beyond all expectation. I had read a 
story in " The Thousand and One Nights," — " The Story of 
Prince Zeyn Alasnam, the King of the Ghosts," — which I found 
very suitable for an opera text ; but although the subject inter- 
ested me, I gave it up, as I knew that in this country operas re- 
lating to enchantment, even with the very best of music, are not 
understood or valued : I had a proof of this in "The Raven." 
On reading Gozzi, I found the subject treated as a comedy of 
enchantment ; but still better than this, and more suited to rep- 
resentation, was one by Raimund, in his " The Ghost-King's 
Diamond." I had earlier, as is known, essayed my ability in 
this style of comedy. I wrote for the Royal Theatre " The 
Flower of Fortune/' which indeed was laid aside after its 
seventh representation, but it was applauded ; and I had the 
conviction that the talent which the world allowed me as a 
story-poet might be able to bring forth some flowers in that 
direction. I reproduced Raimund then in u More than Pearls 
and Gold," and this piece, I am bold to say, brought the 
Casino Theatre great credit \ all classes from the highest to 
the lowest came to see it. The Casino has seats for twenty- 
five hundred spectators, and in a series of representations, 
one immediately after the other, all the tickets were sold. It 
brought me great praise and good satisfaction. One hundred 
rix-dollars was the stipulated honorarium ; there was no theatre 
in this country at that time, except the Royal Theatre, which 
paid any author for his works ; that was therefore already 
something, and a further addition of one hundred dollars was 
sent me, as the piece steadily " filled the house," as they called 
it ; after that several other young authors followed my exam- 
ple. Hostrup, Overskou, Erik Bogh, Recke, and Chievitz, 
produced works of merit; the actors improved year by 
year ; the demands of the public grew always higher and were 
constantly surpassed, for there were always some 1 who of course 



372 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

overlooked the care and endeavor shown by the actors. " Only 
Casino," is said ; but when that is said by clever men, although 
they never go near it, — as, for instance, when the author 
of "A Hundred Years " in his poem speaks of the play in 
Casino with scorn, — then it is unjust. 

I had written a new piece for the theatre, the wonder com- 
edy, a 01e Lukoie," the northern dream-god, to whom I had 
already before in one of my stories essayed to give a body, — 
to give him form and character • I wished to bring him on the 
stage, made alive to the eye, and let him express the truth, 
that health, good humor, and peace of soul are worth more than 
money. I mused on my poem and wrote it down. Director 
Lange showed the greatest care, nay, love, in representing the 
piece as respectably as possible on the little, narrow, confined 
stage in Casino, — a piece that required a large stage. I was 
pleased to deal with the actors, who were interested in the 
poem ; they respected the author, they were not the all-impor- 
tant, chief figures in the poem, such as I have met with at the 
legitimate theatre. " Ole Lukoie " was brought on the stage 
at Casino, and the house was crowded. 

The evening of the representation arrived, and I observed 
also in a few hours how that waving sea, the public, may crit- 
icise and judge what it has taken weeks to produce \ but the 
same evening brought me both storm and calm. My poem 
was not understood ; at the first act they laughed and became 
noisy ; at the end of the second everything was ridiculed, sev- 
eral of the spectators went away at the beginning of the third 
act, and said up at the club-house : " The whole thing is non- 
sense ! They are now in China, and God knows where his 
fancy will carry them next ! " 

But at the beginning of the third act there was a moment's 
calm ; before people all talked loudly, now they listened ; there 
was more and more tranquillity, and as soon as the idea of the 
piece seized them, a triumphant applause stormed through 
the house. When the curtain dropped all were delighted, 
they applauded and expressed their pleasure. I had never 
before felt truly grieved at the misunderstanding, the mocking 
and jest with which I was wont to be greeted, but now for 
the first time I had a strong consciousness of the injustice 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 373 

which I suffered. I felt angry as I faced that mocking crowd. 
I was grieved, and the applause, which now rushed toward 
me was empty, and had no meaning for me. When I went 
away several people came up to me and expressed their 
thanks, but I could not accept them: "They have scoffed 
and mocked — that I must first try to forget ! " 

The piece was played many evenings to great assemblies 
and received great attention. From the people themselves, — 
the common people, who are called the poorer classes, — I re- 
ceived thanks that no newspaper critique, no fine discrimina- 
tion in different circles of society could equal. A poor trades- 
man stood one evening, at the end of the piece, with tears in 
his eyes, and going out of the door by me he seized my hand 
and said : " I thank you, poet Andersen : it was a blessed 
comedy ! " Those words were more to me than the most 
brilliant critique. I must here mention one incident more : in 
a family of the official class, a house where I often visited, the 
lady of the house told me that she had been very much aston- 
ished in the morning to see the groom with an unusually de- 
lightful face when she spoke to him. " Has anything extraor- 
dinary happened to-day to Hans, since he is so unusually 
happy ? " she asked one of the girls ; and from her she learned 
that Hans had received one of the tickets yesterday which was 
not in use. Hans was what is called a real country bumpkin, 
who went drowsing about. " He is entirely changed," said the 
girl. " When he came home last night from the comedy, ' Ole 
Lukoie,' he was highly pleased with all that he had heard and 
seen. ' I have always supposed/ said he, ' that the rich and 
people of rank ought to be very happy, but now I see that we 
poor ones are quite as well off; that I have learned there at 
the theatre ; it was like a sermon, only there was something 
to be seen, and something very splendid too ! ' " No judg- 
ment has pleased and flattered me more than that of the poor, 
uneducated fellow ! 

During the summer, which I spent at Glorup and at the 
beautiful Corselitze on Falster, I finished " In Sweden." It 
was the last of my writings which H. C. Orsted heard read, 
and it gave him great pleasure ; the two sections, " Faith and 
Science," and " Poetry's California," both called forth by his 



374 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ingenious and suggestive conversation, and by the conception 
of his " Spirit in Nature," became the subjects of many a talk 
between us. " They have so often accused you of want of 
study," he said one day in his mild, joking manner, " that 
perhaps you are going to be the very poet, who will do the 
most for science ! " 

During my summer stay at Glorup he sent me the second 
part of " Spirit in Nature," and wrote of the book : " I dare 
not hope that it will make the same favorable impression 
upon you, as I had the pleasure to learn that the first part 
did, because this new volume is intended principally to ex- 
plain more clearly the former ; yet it will not be wholly want- 
ing in novelty, and I dare believe that the manner of thinking 
is the same in both of them ! " The book interested me 
much, and I expressed my pleasure in a long letter, of which 
I give the following extracts : — 

. . . . " Your opinion is that this portion would not 
make the same impression on me as the first part did; I 
cannot distinguish one from the other ; they are like one and 
the same rich stream ; and what above all makes me glad is 
that I here seem to see only my own thoughts. My belief, 
my conviction lies here in plain words before me. I have 
not only read for myself, but I have also read aloud to a few 
others, ' The Relations of Physical Sciences to various Impor- 
tant Subjects of Religion.' That chapter is especially suited for 
reading aloud. I could wish that I might read it to all man- 
kind. I value the blind belief of the pious multitude of people, 
but I consider it to be far more blessed when they also know 
what they believe. Our Lord may well permit us to look at 
Him through that intellect with which He has gifted us ; 
I will not go to God blindfold ; I will have my eyes open ; I 
will see and know, and if I should not reach any other end 
than he who only believes, my thoughts have in any event 
grown richer. Your book pleases me very much ; f6r my own 
part I am also glad that the book is very easy to understand, 
so that it sometimes seems to me as if it were the result of 
my own reflection, — as if I might say to myself on reading it, 
1 Yes, I should have said exactly the same thing ! ' Its truth 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



375 



has passed over into me and is become a part of myself. I 
have, however, thus far read only half of the book ; the war 
news drew me away from it \ and since, my thoughts have been 
fixed on events at the seat of war \ yet I could not entirely de- 
fer writing you and giving you my sincere thanks 

Eight long days I have not been able to do anything — I am so 
overwhelmed. I forget the victory of our brave soldiers when 
I think of all those young men who have sacrificed their lives ; 
I knew several of them. Colonel Lassoe, you know, was a 
friend of mine ; I have known him since he was a cadet, and 
always thought that he would become a great man ; he had 
a very clear judgment, a firm will, and was in possession of 
knowledge and high education. He was so dear to me ! 
How often has he, though younger than I, overpowered me 
with bold and hardy thoughts ; he rallied me jokingly, when 
he perceived sickly sprigs in my fancy. On the way from his 
mother's to the city, we had often talked of the present, of the 
world, and of the future — now he is gone away ! His poor old 
mother must certainly be deeply afflicted ; I don't know how 
she can bear her sorrow. He fell on the same day as Schlep- 
pegrell and Trepka, in a little town near Idsted. It is said 
that those of our soldiers who first entered the town were 
treated to eating and drinking by the inhabitants ; those who 
followed after felt safe, and arriving in the midst of the town, 
the insurgents and inhabitants, men and women, rushed out 
from doors and gates and commenced a heavy fusilade. 
Our soldiers' steadfastness was admirable ; they advanced 
through a deep moor against the enemies' fire, jumped from 
knob to knob, and notwithstanding they fell before the grape- 
shot like flies, their comrades followed and threw the enemy 
from his secure position. Would that that battle were the 
last, but we know not what still may be in store, and how 
many dear lives may yet be thrown away. O God ! may truth 
become truth, may peace again throw its light over the lands ! 
Sorrow now enters the houses of most : we have bitter, gloomy 
days. I have half a mind to go and see that full, stirring life, 
but I will not, for I know that I should be too much affected 
by the sight of all the misery I should encounter there. If I 
could only do something, if I could only comfort and quicken 



376 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

some of the sufferers — but I cannot ! .... I bid you 
a sincere farewell ! Yours affectionately, 

" H. C. Andersen." 

When the tidings of the battle of Idsted arrived, I could 
not partake in the common joy of the victory ; I was too much 
cast down by Lassoe's death. In the night I wrote to his 
mother ; I did not know what strength God was giving her to 
endure such a heavy loss. 

After the struggle and the victory, peace shone over the 
land. The return of the soldiers made festival days, which 
brightened my life and will always remain as a recollection 
of beauty. I wrote a song for the Swedish and Norwegian 
volunteers, with which they received the Danes at the 
" Iron Gate " at Frederiksborg Avenue. Over the western 
city gate was displayed as a greeting the inscription : 
" The brave country-soldier has kept his promise ! " All 
the corporations met with their flags and emblems, a thing 
which before we were used to see only in the theatre m the 
drama " Hans Sachs ; " many a poor man's mind was elated 
at seeing what significance his class had in the city, each hav- 
ing its own banner. The music sounded ; " the golden apples " 
in the fountain on " the old market-place " played, which 
usually took place only once a year on the King's birthday. 
Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish flags waved from all the 
houses j many inscriptions were ingenious and beautiful : 
"Victory — peace — reconciliation," was read in one place. 
All had a festival look, and I felt " Danish in mind." At the 
arrival of the first soldiers, tears rushed down my cheeks. 
The riding-school was transformed into a triumphal hall with 
waving flags and garlands. The officers' table was placed 
under three palm-trees covered with golden fruits ; the com- 
mon soldiers were seated at long tables ; students and other 
young men acted as stewards ; music, songs, and speeches fol- 
lowed gayly ; bouquets and wreaths rained down. ' It was a 
pleasure to stay here and to talk with the plain, brave fellows, 
who did not know they were heroes. 

I asked one, who was a Sleswicker from Angeln, if they 
had suffered a good deal in the caserns. He answered : " We 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



377 



had a jolly time of it ; everything was so fine that we could 
not sleep the first night ; we lay upon mattresses covered with 
blankets. For three months we lived in that style, and the 
worst thing about the barracks was the bad smoke from wet 
wood. What fine times we are having here, and what gallant 
folks the Copenhageners are." He praised Flensborg as a 
true Danish town. " In the warm days they drove from there 
down to Sleswick and brought us wine and water ! That w^s 
a good thing 1 " There was a modesty shown by the soldiers, 
especially the foot-soldiers ; they would point out the most 
valiant among their comrades, and would give the wreaths 
which were thrown into the crowd to those they thought most 
worthy. In the riding-school sixteen hundred men were en- 
tertained, infantry and hussars, and many speeches made. 
Mr. Lange, the director of the Casino, offered them a great 
number of tickets for the evening representations, so that a 
great part of the soldiers could go there without expense, and 
I was extremely glad that I could be of a little service to them 
there, by procuring them seats, speaking with them, and giving 
them information. I heard and saw many peculiarities on the 
occasion. Most of them had never seen a comedy, and had no 
idea at all what it was. The vestibule and the lobbies were 
adorned with green leaves and flags. Between the acts I met 
two soldiers on the lobby. " Well, did you see anything ? " I 
asked. " O yes, everything, and it was splendid ! " — " But the 
comedy — have you seen that ? " — " Is that something else 
to be seen too ? M said both of them. They had remained on 
the lobby and looked at the gas-lights and flags, and seen 
their comrades and people go up and down the stairways. 

During these days of rejoicing still another festival was 
celebrated in private life — it may be called a family feast. 
The Privy-Counsellor Collin had two years previously retired 
from the administration of his office ; his jubilee occurred the 
eighteenth of February 1851 ; that was celebrated in the quiet 
of his family circle. 

At the very time when our soldiers were returning home, 
while songs and words of joy were everywhere heard, there 
came heavy days of grief: Mrs. Emma Hartmann and H. C. 
Orsted died both in the same week. There was in that richly 



378 THE STORY OF MY LIFE.^ 

gifted woman a spirit of humor and liveliness, which were 
manifested wholly free from affectation. She was one of those 
beings who had drawn me into the circle of her genius, 
humor, and heart, and such always acted upon me as the sun- 
light acts upon the plant ! It is impossible to describe that 
fountain of joy and sport, the tenderness which poured out 
from her. There was truth indeed in what the minister, the 
poet Boye, said at her coffin : " Her heart was a temple of 
God ; she filled it entirely with love, of which she received 
abundantly and gave plentifully not alone to her own but to 
many without, to the poor, the sick, and the sorrowful — as 
far as it could reach ! " — and always with a kind word, with 
some pleasantry, she gave to all the best she had. The 
testimony at her grave is true, that "Happy thoughts and 
merry feelings took their abode in her, and she let them 
freely flutter out, like winged birds, with song and merriment, 
making a friendly spring day at home for those who sur- 
rounded her ! " They warbled as they liked, and all went their 
way. It seemed as if words were ennobled when she used 
them ; she could say what she chose just as a child can, be- 
cause one felt that it was served in a clean vessel. Many a 
jest, many a witty sally came from her lips, but she thought it 
excessively comical that people should put down on paper, 
nay, give from the stage such talk as, she said, she could give 
every day ; she could not understand how they dared offer a 
serious public such things as were said by the King of Spirits 
in " More than Pearls and Gold," and Grethe's replies about 
the stork, and her jest about standing in "stork thoughts." 
She went, to be sure, to the theatre to see this piece, as also 
" Ole Lukoie," but for a peculiar reason. One day it snowed 
very hard when her two eldest boys came home from school, 
but the third of them, a little one, was lost on the way home, 
far out at Christianshavn and as she sat in anxiety and fear ; 
I happened to come in, and promised at once to go and seek 
the lost child. I was not well ; she knew it, and was' sorry that 
I should run out to Christianshavn • but how could I do other 
than help her ? It touched her, and she told me that when I 
went away, she walked up and down the floor in anxiety but 
also in gratitude, and exclaimed : " He is really kind ! and I 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



379 



will go and see his ' More than Pearls and Gold ! J — if he 
brings my dear boy I will also see ' Ole Lukoie.' " — " Yes, I 
have made that promise ! " said she, when I came back ; " I 
will go and see it, though it is horrible ! M — and she did see it \ 
she laughed and was more amusing than both the pieces to- 
gether. She was very musical, and several pieces of music of 
hers, though without her name, have been published. With 
her whole soul she conceived and understood Hartmann, and 
when anticipating the acknowledgment and importance he 
was to get abroad, she would become profoundly serious and 
a brightness would flash out from her thoughts, — she, who 
always was seen in laughter and full of fun. One of our last 
conversations was about Orsted's " Spirit in Nature,'" and es- 
pecially the part on the immortality of the soul. " It is so 
dizzily grand, — it is almost too much for us human beings ! n 
she exclaimed. " But I will believe, I must believe it ! " and 
her eyes shone. In the same moment a joke passed over her 
lips. Humor abides with us, poor mortals, else we might 
think ourselves already quite like our Lord. 

It was a sorrowful morning ! Hartmann flung his arms 
around my neck, and said with tears : " She is dead ! " 
" Where in the days of life the mother sat among flowers ; 
where, like the blessed fain' of the house, she nodded kindly 
to husband, children, and friends ; where, like the sunbeam of 
the house, she spread joy around her, and was the binding 
cord and heart of the whole, there now sat Sorrow." 

In the same hour that the mother died, the youngest of the 
children, the little girl, Maria, grew suddenly sick. In one of 
my stories, "The Old House/'' I have preserved some traits 
of her character; it was this little girl, a two-year old child, 
who always, when she heard music and singing, must dance 
to it \ and entering one Sunday the room where the elder 
sisters were singing psalms, she began to dance, but her mu- 
sical sense would not allow her to be out of measure and tune, 
and these were so long and slow that she was kept standing 
first upon one foot and then upon the other, but she danced 
involuntarily in complete psalm-measure. In the mother's 
hour of death the little head drooped \ it was as if the mother 
had prayed our Lord : " Give me one of the children, the 



380 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

smallest one, who cannot be without me ! " and God listened 
to her prayer. The same evening the mother's coffin was 
carried to the church, the little girl died, and a few days after 
was buried in a grave close by her mother. 

Upon the bier the little child looked like a grown-up girl. 
I have never seen an image more like an angel, and its in- 
nocence displayed itself for me in those words, almost too 
child-like for this world, when I asked her in joke one evening 
when she was a very little girl, and was going to her bath : 
" May I go with you ? " and she replied, " No, sir, I am too 
little, but when I am grown larger, then you may ! " 

Death does not efface the stamp of beauty in the human 
visage ; it often makes it more sublime ; it is only dissolution 
of body that is unbeauteous. I never saw any one in death so 
beautiful, so noble as the mother ; there was spread over her 
face a sublime repose, a sacred seriousness, as if she were 
standing before her God. Round about exhaled a fragrance 
of flowers. Over her coffin sounded words of truth : " She 
never wounded any man by her judgment when she judged the 
world and its doings \ she never lessened the honor and praise 
of the righteous ; she never permitted slander to go unpun- 
ished. She did not anxiously weigh her words ; she did not 
concern herself as to whether her speaking might be misun- 
understood by those who had not her frankness." 

Close by the houses of the street that run by " the Garrison 
cemetery," just within the iron fence, is to be seen a tomb, al- 
ways more adorned, and better guarded and kept, than the 
other tombs, — there reposes the dust of Emma Hartmann 
and little Maria. 

Four days after that I lost H. C Orsted. It was almost 
too heavy for me to bear. I lost in those two so infinitely 
much : first, Emma Hartmann, who by her humor, and life, 
and merriment, relieved my mind when I was depressed and 
afflicted, — she to whom I could go to find sunshine j and now 
Orsted, whom I had known almost all the years I had been 
in Copenhagen, and who had become dear to me, as one of 
the most sympathizing in my life's weal and woe. During the 
last days I went by turns from Hartmann's to Orsted's, — to 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 38 1 

the friend who, in my spiritual struggles and trials, had by 
spiritual means kept me up, whom I was here for the last time 
to meet with. I did not, however, yet think so. Orsted was 
so youthful in heart, he longed and spoke so much of the 
coming summer in the pleasant house in the Frederiksborg's 
garden. The year before, late in the autumn, his jubilee was 
celebrated, and the city granted him and his family, while he 
lived, the summer residence that Oehlenschlager had lately 
occupied : " When the trees are budding and the sun comes a 
little forth, we will go out there ! " he said ; but already, the 
first days of March, he fell sick, yet he kept up good courage. 
Mrs. Hartmann died the sixth of March. In deep affliction I 
came to Orsted ; then I heard that his disease was dangerous ; 
he was suffering of inflammation in one of the lungs. " It will 
be his death ! " I was filled with this sorrowful thought, though 
he himself believed that he was recovering. " Sunday I will 
get up !" said he, and that Sunday he rose before his God ! 

When I came there he was struggling with death ; his wife 
and children were standing around the bed. I sat down in the 
next room and wept — I was ready to sink. There was a 
quietness, a Christian's quiet repose, in that home ! 

The burial took place the eighteenth of March. I was phys- 
ically ill, and it was a real exertion and struggle for me to 
walk the short way from the university to the church ; that 
slow walk was drawn out into two hours. Dean Tryde deliv- 
ered the sermon, not Bishop Mynster : " He was not sum- 
moned to it," they said, excusing him ; but should it be neces- 
sary to ask the friend to speak of the friend ? I wanted to 
weep, but I could not ; it was as if my heart would burst ! 

Mrs. Orsted and the youngest daughter, Mathilde, remained 
in the house of mourning ; they heard the chiming of the bells 
through the many long funeral hours. The tones of the bas- 
soons did the heart good. I went to them afterward, and we 
talked of the peculiar circumstance that Hartmann's funeral 
march was played in the church, that he composed for Thor- 
waldsen's funeral ; for the last time we heard it Orsted was 
with us, and Hartmann played it. At a little festival which 
Miss Bremer made for me, before my journey to Sweden, 
little Maria Hartmann, who now is dead, was then dressed as 



382 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

an angel, and bestowed on me a wreath and a silver cup. 
Hartmann played some pieces for us. Miss Bremer rose and 
asked for the funeral march ; she was strangely moved by it, 
and grasped my hand, saying that I must not consider it as 
having a sad meaning. " It signifies the going forward toward 
greater things ! " she said. Now it was played over Orsted, 
and over his coffin it sounded u Forward to greater things ! " 



CHAPTER XV. 

PEACE was hovering over the countries, the sun of spring 
shone. I felt a desire to travel, a longing to live again ; 
and therefore I flew out of the city, out to the light-green wood, 
to dear friends at the bay of Praesto, to Christinelund (Chris- 
tina's grove). The young people out there wished to have 
the stork build her nest upon their house, but no stork came. 
"Wait till I come!" I wrote; "then the stork will also 
come ! " and just as I had said it, early in the morning of the 
same day they expected me, two storks came ; they were in 
full activity building their nest when I drove into the yard. 
This year I saw the stork flying, and that signifies, says an 
old superstition, that I also was to fly away, to go travelling. 
My flight that summer was, however, but a short one ; the 
spires of Prague were the most southerly points that I saw ; 
this year's travelling chapter has but few pages, but the first of 
them, we see, has the vignette of flying storks, which build 
upon the roof in shelter of the recently budded beech wood. 
At Christinelund spring had itself drawn its vignette — a bloom- 
ing apple-branch, growing at the side of a field-ditch. Spring 
itself was then in its most beautiful manifestation. The little 
story, " There is a Difference," had its origin from that sight. 
Most of my poems and stories have their roots thus from 
without. Every one will, by contemplating life and nature 
round about with a poetic eye, see and conceive such revela- 
tions of beauty, which may be called accidental poetry. I will 
here mention an example or two : — On the day that King 
Christian VIII. died, we know that a wild swan flew against 
the spire of Roeskilde Cathedral and bruised its breast ; 
Oehlenschlager has, in his memorial poem of the JCing, pre- 
served the incident. When they were fastening fresh wreaths 
on Oehlenschlager's tomb, and taking away the withered ones, 
they perceived that in one of these a little singing-bird had 



384 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

built its nest. When once on a mild Christmas I was at 
Bregentved, a thin fall of snow lay one morning upon the 
broad stones at the obelisk in the garden ; I wrote thought- 
lessly with my cane in the snow these words : — 

" Like snow is immortality : 
No trace to-morrow doth one see." 

I went away ; there came thaw, and after a few days again 
frosty weather ; and then coming to the place, all the snow 
was melted except upon a little spot, and there only remained 
the word " immortality ! " I was deeply touched at the ac- 
cident, and my fervent thought was : " God, my God, I have 
never doubted ! " 

My real summer sojourn that year was at dear Glorup with 
my friend, the noble old Count Gebhardt Moltke-Hvitfeldt. 
It was the last year we met there together ; God called him 
the following spring ; but that summer stay crowned all the 
dear days I had spent there. He planned a festival for the 
soldiers who had gone from his estates to the war. I have 
before spoken of the noble old gentleman's patriotic mind, 
the vivid interest which he took in the agitations of the time, 
and I have also spoken of the Danish and Swedish troops' 
stay at Glorup. Now the bells of victory had rung, and he 
wished the soldiers to have here a good time, a right happy day 
and night. I was charged with the arrangement of the fes- 
tival, which gave me much to do ; but it was successful, and 
procured me great pleasure. On both sides of a great basin 
in the garden two long lime-tree alleys extend ; in one of 
them I pitched a tent forty yards in length, thirteen wide, and 
eight in height ; the floor was laid with planed boards, giving 
a room to dance. The trees in the alley served as columns ; 
the trunks were wound about with shining red damask, that 
once had been used as tapestry, and now was thrown away 
in a corner ; the capitals were formed of variegated shields 
and great bouquets. A rapeseed sail served as roof, and 
under that, from the centre of the saloon, a canopy made of 
garlands and Dannebrog shields stretched in each direction ; 
twelve chandeliers with Danish colors lit the room. From 
the red ground of the wall shone, surrounded with flowers, the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 385 

King's cipher, and upon variegated painted shields were the 
names of all the generals. Between the two entrances of the 
hall a large orchestra was placed under a canopy of Dannebrog 
flags ; raised boxes were arranged at the sides, and uppermost 
in the hall, among blooming forget-me-nots, two vases with 
flame-fires, and mourning-crape, and small black shields, bore 
the names of the first and the last of the fallen officers : Heger- 
mann Lindencrone and Dalgas. Two others bore the inscrip- 
tion, " The country soldier ; " higher up, among shields which 
told of the victories, shone a mighty shield with a verse to 
the country soldier. A wreath of blood-beech leaves waved 
over it with golden crown and laurel branches. The whole 
had a great and peculiar effect upon those for whom it was 
arranged. " It is worthy to be seen by the King ! " said a 
peasant. " It has cost more than a thousand dollars ! " said 
another. " You may say a million ! " said his wife. " That 
is the kingdom of heaven ! " said an old paralytic man, who 
was carried to the festival. " Such splendor, such music ! it 
is the kingdom of heaven ! " For none of my poetic works 
did I ever get so unanimous an acknowledgment and praise as 
for my architectural talent, a thing which was very easy to me, 
who have seen so much of the kind contrived by Bournonville, 
and later by Carstensen. 

The festival took place on the seventh of July, in beautiful 
weather. At one o'clock the soldiers came marching up, and 
were received in the castle-yard w r ith a speech of welcome by 
the minister. At the sound of " The brave country soldier," 
the procession marched up to the dancing-hall, where the tables 
stood richly served ; cannon echoed from the little island, 
where flags waved ; the orchestra played, and joy and pleasure 
shone on all faces. His Excellency drank the health of the 
King, after that I read aloud a verse to the country soldier, 
and then my song was sung. Among the many affectionate 
toasts, a soldier gave one for the man who had built the splen- 
did hall, and another of them said innocently that I certainly 
ought to be paid a good shilling for it. The girls arrived in 
the evening. Each man was allowed to invite one girl, and 
the dance commenced in the brilliant dancing-hall ; the 
alley along the basin was illuminated ; a little three-masted 
25 



386 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

vessel with variegated lanterns was floating on the water. 
Most of the cuttings for lamps and lanterns were made by 
myself. 

"Next year I will again arrange such a festival/' said his 
Excellency. " It is a pleasure to give such happiness to so 
many people, and they are so brave, so respectable too ! " But 
alas I it was the last festival he gave : the next spring he was 
called to his God. That year, however, there was another 
celebration, that of the silver wedding of his children, and 
to that were invited only the peasants from all his estates. 
The soldiers' festival was meantime the chief affair of the sum- 
mer day here, and all my exertions and interest had in them 
one reward. Those hours stand like a bright page in the story 
of my life. 

The period of war lay between the present and my last stay 
in Germany. I had not yet visited the seat of war, because 
my feelings revolted against going there driven only by curi- 
osity while other men were acting there. Now peace was 
concluded ; we could again meet, but my thoughts were full 
of all the bloody events, and my first wish was to go to those 
places where my countrymen had fought and suffered. One 
of my young friends travelled with me ; we met at Svendborg, 
and were carried by steamer to Als, where were still to be seen 
intrenchments and huts of earth ; at our sailing up the frith 
every tile-kiln, every projecting point of land, told us a story 
of the war. Our visit at Flensborg was to see the graves of 
our fallen heroes. The garden of death rises high over town 
and sea, and there was especially one grave here which I 
sought and found — that of Frederick Lassoe ; he lies between 
Schleppegrell and Trepka. I plucked here one green leaf for 
his mother, and one for myself, thinking of his short, active 
life and of his generous love for me. We approached soon 
the real field of battle. New houses, in place of those which 
were burnt, were now building ; but round about was seen the 
bare earth, where the rain of balls had ploughed the soil. 
My soul was filled with seriousness and woe. I thought of 
Lassoe and his last moment; I thought of the many who had 
expired here. It was sacred ground I passed over. 

The town of Sleswick was still in a state of siege ; Helge- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 387 

sen was the commander there. I had never seen him before, 
and it happened that he was the first whom I met. Entering 
Mrs. Esselbach's hotel, his powerful figure drew my attention ; 
his features put me also somewhat in mind of the portrait of 
him which I had seen ; it ought to be the hero of Frederikstad. 
I went up to him and asked him if he was the commander : he 
answered yes, and giving him my name, he received me im- 
mediately very kindly. One of his officers accompanied me 
to Dannevirke, and gave me the information I desired. Queen 
Thyra's mighty earth-rampart seemed again to have risen. I 
saw an entire barrack-town still standing • the houses of the 
officers were furnished with windows of glass, and in one of 
those houses was now the soldiers' guard-room. I passed the 
evening with Helgesen. He was friendly, and a plain, straight- 
forward man ; in his look and manner he reminded me of 
Thorwaldsen ; he named the one of my stories that had 
pleased him most, and it was, characteristically enough, " The 
Constant Tin Soldier." At the fortifications before Rendsborg 
Danish soldiers were standing. I nodded to them, and the 
honest fellows understood that Danes were sitting in the car- 
riage ; they smiled and nodded to me again. But the drive 
through the town of Rendsborg was very unpleasant ; it was 
as if I drove through a pit of death ; here it was that the 
insurrection had its root. Ugly memories came in my 
thoughts ; the town had always seemed to me mouldy and 
oppressive, and now it was a smarting, unpleasant feeling for 
a Dane to come here. On the railroad I was seated by the 
side of an old gentleman, who, taking me for an Austrian, 
praised them, calling them my countrymen, and then spoke ill 
of the Danes. I told him that I was a Dane, and our conver- 
sation stopped ; I fancied I saw evil looks round about, and 
only when all Holstein, and Hamburg too, were lying behind 
me did I breathe freely. 

On the Hanover railroad I heard, in the carriage next to 
mine, a Danish song, from Danish-girl voices \ a bouquet of 
flowers was thrown in to me ; I sent them back again a bou- 
quet, but in words only. Denmark and all that was Danish 
filled my mind, and surrounded me also at times on the other 
side of the river Elbe. 1 had never been so Danish before 



388 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

when I travelled in the German country. Not until I came 
to Leipsic and Dresden did I again find acquaintances and 
friends ; they were unchanged, kind, and hearty. The hour of 
our meeting was a dear one ; it was well for the mind that 
the dark, gloomy interval had passed. Almost all acknowl- 
edged with heartiness the Danish people's power and unity, 
and the strength that lay in it. Some of them exclaimed, 
" The Danes are right ! " It is true that some were of another 
opinion, but they did not express it. I had no reason to com- 
plain ; I saw and felt a friendly mind and a sympathy around 
me ; yes, the accidental poetry, if I may repeat that word, 
gave its poetry in honor of the Dane. I must relate a little 
event : 

Seven years had elapsed since I had seen the hospitable 
family Von Serre, whom I have before mentioned as living in 
beautiful Maxen, a few miles from Dresden. At that time, 
on the evening before my departure, I found, on a walk which 
I took with the lady of the estate, a little larch, so small that 
I could carry it in my pocket ; it had been thrown away by 
the roadside ; I picked it up, and found it was broken. " Poor 
tree ! " said I, ct it must not die ! " and I looked about upon 
the rocky ground for a fissure with a little earth, in which I 
could plant the tree. " They say I am a lucky hand ! " said 
I ; " perhaps it will grow." At the very edge of the slope of 
the rock I found a little earth in a stone crevice ; here I put 
the tree down, went away, and thought no more of it. " Your 
tree at Maxen is growing admirably ! " the artist Dahl told me 
some years after at Copenhagen. He had come directly from 
Dresden. I heard of it now at Maxen as " The Danish Poet's 
Tree," for so it was called, and this name it had carried in an 
inscription for several years. The tree took root, shot out 
branches, and grew tall, because it had been cared for by Mrs. 
Von Serre, who had caused earth to be laid about it ; after-that 
had had a piece of the rock blown away ; and lately a path 
had been laid out close by it, and before the tree stood the in- 
scription, "The Danish Poet's Tree." It had not been mo- 
lested during the war with Denmark, but now " it is going to 
die," they said ; " the tree will come to nothing." A mighty 
birch-tree was growing close by, its large branches spread 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 389 

themselves over the larch, and that alone was enough to check 
its growth and make it perish. But one day in the midst of 
the war there was a violent storm ■ the lightning split the 
birch-tree and tore it from the rock, and — " The Danish Poet's 
Tree " stood free and untouched. I came to Maxen, saw my 
young tree, and near by the stump of the birch. A new plate 
bore the inscription. It was Major von Serre's birthday, and 
all the best people in Dresden were gathered here for the 
celebration. The workmen from the marble quarries and 
lime-kilns of the estate came with songs and flowers. It has 
always been a certain good fortune of mine on my travels to 
meet with something peculiar and interesting, and this was 
also the case on the railway between Leipsic and Dresden. 
In the compartment with me sat an old lady with a large mar- 
ket basket upon her lap ; at her side was her twelve-year old 
boy, Henry, who, tired of travelling all night and day, looked 
longingly after the spires of Dresden. Opposite me was a 
young, lively lady, who spoke boldly of art, literature, and 
music, with which she seemed to be very conversant ; she had 
been in England several years : they were all on their way from 
Breda. During the stopping of the train, I went out with two 
other travellers, and we guessed who she might be. I pre- 
sumed her at first to be an actress : another thought that she 
was governess in a very fine English family. On the way the 
old lady pushed me slightly and said, " That is a remarkable 
person ! " — " Who is she ? " I asked quickly. " Demoiselle " — 
she stopped suddenly, because the young lady ; who was lean- 
ing out of the window, again talked with us. My curiosity 
was considerably strained. " Antoinette ! " the brother cried 
to her, " there is Dresden ! — Antoinette ! " When we stepped 
out of the carriage, I whispered to the old lady, " Who is that 
young lady ? " and she whispered mysteriously at parting, 
" Demoiselle Bourbon/'' — " And who is Antoinette Bourbon ? " 
I asked at Dresden, and they told me that she was the 
daughter of the well known watchmaker at Geneva, who 
claimed to be the son of the unfortunate Louis XVI. and 
Marie Antoinette ; that the children had lived for some time 
in England, were staying now in Breda, but sometimes came 
incognito to Dresden. An old French lady, who felt certain 



390 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

that they were the real Dauphin's children, lived with them 
and for them. This was told me, and corresponded with the 
appearance of my travelling companions, and surely, Antoi- 
nette's face had a certain royal dignity ; she might well be con- 
sidered the daughter of the Dauphin, or at least of a man who 
had the features of the Bourbons. 

Weimar was deserted. I knew that all my friends were scat- 
tered about. The visit here and the continuation of my travel 
were therefore reserved for the following year. 

I received at home in the autumn, the sixth of October, 
185 1, the title of Professor. On the arrival of spring, and as 
soon as the wood put forth its leaves, I set out to tie fast the 
travelling-thread where I had lost it, and that was at my 
favorite Weimar. My friends greeted me cordially ; the recep- 
tion was as kind as ever, from the grand ducal palace to the 
many acquaintances and friends all over the city. Beaulieu 
de Marconnay had, in the interval of our separation, become 
court-marshal and intendant of the theatre ; was married, had 
a happy home, where I, as in former days, was received as 
a friend, — I might almost say, as a brother. Some sweet 
children were playing in the room ; they stretched their small 
hands toward me • and the lady of the house stood there her- 
self as the good guardian spirit of the house : happiness and 
blessings had here taken their abode. 

The other thing that during my visit at Weimar this time 
offered itself to me as a new bouquet of memory was the in- 
tercourse I had with Liszt, who, as is known, had here an 
office as chapel-master, and had a great influence on the mu- 
sical element of the whole theatre. The problem he espe- 
cially set himself was to bring out dramatic compositions of 
value, which perhaps otherwise would hardly have been 
introduced in the German theatres. In Weimar has thus 
been given Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini," which, as regards 
the chief personage, has for the Weimarians a special interest 
through Goethe's "Benvenuto." Wagner's music especially 
interests Liszt very much, and he is using every exertion 
to make it known, partly by bringing it on the stage, and 
partly by writing of it. He has published in French an entire 
book concerning the two compositions, " Tannhauser " and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 39 I 

" Lohengrin \ " the first one has, on account of its subject, great 
significance in Weimar, as it is associated with the Thuringian 
traditions. The scene takes place at Wartburg. Wagner is 
considered as the most remarkable composer of the present 
time, a position which I cannot in my plain, natural feeling 
well admit ; it seems to me as if all his music were composed 
intellectually. In " Tannhauser " I must admire the exceed- 
ingly well-delivered recitative, as for instance where Tann- 
hauser returns from Rome and relates his pilgrimage, — 
that is charming ! I recognize the grand and picturesque 
elements in this music-poem, but I feel there is lacking the 
flower of music, — the melody. Wagner himself has written 
the text to his operas, and as a poet in this respect he occu- 
pies a high place \ there are variations, there are situations ; 
the music itself, the first time I heard it, sounded like a great 
sea of tunes which waved over me and affected me in body 
and mind. " What do you say about it now ? " he asked ; and 
I answered, " I am half dead ! " " Lohengrin " seems to me 
a wonderful tree, without flower or fruit. Don't misunder- 
stand me, my judgment of music besides is of little conse- 
quence ; but I claim as well in this art, as also in poetry, the 
three elements : intellect, fancy, and feeling • the last one is 
revealed in melodies ! I see in Wagner the thinking composer 
of the present time, great through intellect and will, a mighty 
breaker down of rejectable old-fashioned things \ but I do not 
feel in him that divinity which is granted to Mozart and Bee- 
thoven. A great and able party speaks as Liszt does ; the 
general public agrees with them here and there. I believe 
that Wagner has such a recognition at Leipsic, but it was not 
so before. One evening in the " Gewandhaus," several years 
ago, when I was there, after the execution of several pieces 
by different composers that were unanimously applauded, 
the overture of "Tannhauser" w r as given; it was the first 
time I heard it, the first time I heard the name Wagner. 
I was struck by the picturesqueness in the whole music-poem, 
and I burst out in applause ; but I was almost the only one. 
They looked at me from every side, they hissed, but I re- 
mained faithful to my impression of the music, applauded once 
more and shouted " Bravo ! " but in my heart I was overcome 



392 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



with bashfulness and the blood rushed up in my cheeks. Now, 
on the contrary, all applauded Wagner's "Tannhauser." I 
told this to Liszt, and he and his whole musical circle re- 
warded me with a " Bravo " because I had given way to right 
feeling. 

From Weimar I went to Nuremberg. The electro-magnetic 
thread kept along beside the railroad. My heart is as Dan- 
ish as any one's ! It throbs stronger at my country's honor ! 
Thus I felt here on the railroad. A father with his son sat in 
the same compartment as I ; the father pointed at the electro- 
magnetic thread. " That is," he said, " a discovery of a 
Dane, — Mr. Orsted ! " I was happy to belong to the same 
nation as he. 

Nuremberg lay before us. I have in one of my stories, 
" Under the Willow," given an impression of that old, magnifi- 
cent city : so also the journey through Switzerland and across 
the Alps has supplied me with the background for the 
picture. I had not visited Munich since 1840, and then it 
stood, as I wrote in the " Bazaar," like a rose-bush that shoots 
forth every year new branches ; but each branch is a street, 
each leaf a palace, a church, or a monument. Now the rose- 
bush had grown up to a large tree all in blossom : one flower' 
is called Basilica, another Bavaria, and in that way I again 
expressed myself, when King Ludvig asked me what impres- 
sion Munich made on me. " Denmark has lost a great artist, 
and I a friend ! " said he, speaking of Thorwaldsen. 

Munich is for me the most interesting city of Germany, and 
that is especially produced by King Ludvig's talent for art 
and his incessant activity. The theatre also is flourishing; 
it possesses one of Germany's most clever theatre intendants, 
the poet Dr. Dingelstedt. He goes every year to the most 
important German stages, and learns there what talent is com- 
ing forward. He visits Paris, and knows the repertoires and 
the wants of the theatres and the public. The royal thea- 
tre at Munich will soon offer a model repertoire ; with us 
such " mise en scene " is entirely unknown : we for instance, 
in "The Daughter of the Regiment," where the scene is 
in Tyrol, have recourse to side-scenes with palms and cac- 
tuses ; we let Norma in one act live in Socrates' Grecian 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



393 



loom, and in another act in Robinson Crusoe's palm-hut \ they 
offer us day-scenes where the sun is shining in, while in the 
background one finds an open balcony and dark-blue starry 
sky ; all without thought and attention, and thus without 
any purpose. But who cares about such things, they say ; no 
paper complains of it. Munich's repertoire has variety ; 
there is pains taken to know the most important productions 
of the time in different countries ; the theatre intendant puts 
himself into relations with the best known authors there. A 
courteous letter which I received from him brought us into 
correspondence ; he wished information about the Danish re- 
pertoire as to original pieces, and mentioned in the same let- 
ter the present Bavarian king's knowledge of my writings and 
his gracious interest in me. The intendant Dingelstedt was 
thus the first person I visited at Munich ; he immediately 
assigned me one of the first boxes in the theatre ; it was dur- 
ing my whole stay at the disposal of myself and my travelling 
companion. He informed King Max of my arrival, and the 
next day I was invited to dinner at the hunting-seat Stern- 
berg, where his majesty then sojourned. The Privy-Legation 
Counselor Von Donniges came for me ; we travelled rapidly 
by rail, and arrived before dinner-time at the little castle, beau- 
tifully situated on a lake, bordered by the Alps. King Max 
is a young, very amiable man. I was received in the most 
gracious and friendly manner. He told me that my writings, 
especially " The Improvisatore," " The Bazaar," " The Little 
Mermaid," and " The Garden of Paradise," had made a deep 
impression on him. He talked of other Danish authors ; 
he knew Oehlenschlager's and H. C. Orsted's writings. He 
spoke with admiration of the spiritual, fresh life in art and 
science which stirred in my country ; from Von Donniges, 
who had travelled in Norway and Seeland, he knew of the 
beauty of the Sound and our charming beech woods ; he knew 
what treasure we own in the Northern museum beyond other 
nations. 

At the table the King honored me by drinking a glass to 
my muse, and rising from table he invited me on a sailing- 
trip. The weather was dull but the clouds were fleeting ; a 
large covered boat lay on the lake \ neatly dressed rowers 



394 THE ST0RY OF MY LIFE. 

appeared with their oars, and soon we were gliding smoothly 
over the water. I read aloud on board the story "The 
Ugly Duckling ; " and amid lively conversation about poetry 
and nature we reached an island, where the king had just 
ordered to be built a beautiful villa. Near by a large hill was 
dug through ; they thought it a giant grave, like those we have 
in the North ; here were found bones, and a knife of flint-stone. 
The attendants kept themselves at a distance ; the King in- 
vited me to take a seat at his side on a bench near the lake ; 
he spoke of my poems, of all that God had granted me, spoke 
of the lot of man in this world and of that strength we had 
when we kept faith in our Lord. Near where we sat stood a 
large blooming elder-tree, which gave me occasion to mention 
the Danish Dryad as it is manifested in the story " The Elder- 
Mother." I told him of my latest poem, and of the dramatic 
application of the same person. Passing by the tree I asked 
his permission to pluck one of its flowers as a memento of 
these moments ; the king himself broke one off and gave it to 
me. That flower I still keep, among pleasant souvenirs, and 
it tells me of the evening here. 

" If the sun would shine," said the King, "you would see 
how beautifully the mountains here would look ! " 

" I have always good luck ! " I exclaimed. " I hope it will 
shine ! " and at the same moment the sun really burst forth, 
the Alps shone in beautiful rosy hue. On our way home 
again I read on the lake the stories of " A Mother," " The 
Flax," and "The Darning-Needle." It was a delightful even- 
ing ; the surface of the water was l^uite calm, the mountains 
became of a deep blue, the snowy summits gleamed, and the 
whole was like a fairy tale. 

I reached Munich at midnight. The " Allgemeine Zeitung " 
had an account of this visit under the title, " King Max and 
the Danish Poet." 

From Munich I went to Switzerland, Lago dr Como, and 
Milan, which city was still declared in a state of siege. When I 
was going to leave the city they could not find my passport 
in the police-office, and called for me to come up there : such 
an event was sufficient to disturb all my travelling-pleasure. 
An open letter from the Austrian Minister at Copenhagen, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



595 



who recommended me to the civil and military authorities, be- 
came now of use to me. They were very polite, but my pass- 
port was not to be found ; but when they brought out all they 
had received, I discovered mine ; it had been put away 
according to its number, but the genscTarme had written it 
down wrong, and the number did not correspond to that he 
had put upon my receipt, but it was soon all right ; only it 
was my customary fortune to have more trouble with my pass- 
port than any one else when I always in travelling keep es- 
pecial watch over it. 

I returned by St. Gothard and the Lake of Lucerne, in 
whose charming environs I spent a few days. At Schaffhau- 
sen I bid farewell to Switzerland, and travelled through the 
scene of Auerbach's " Dorfgeschichten " (village tales), the 
romantic " Schwarzwald." Black charcoal-pits sent out their 
bluish smoke, handsome men passed by, the mountain-way, 
" die Holle " (the hill), was true Alpine-scenery. 

I was witness to a touching scene at a railway-station be- 
tween Freiburg and Heidelberg. A crowd of emigrants to 
America, old and young, stepped into the cars, their relations 
and friends took leave of them, with great crying and lamen- 
tation. I saw an old woman clinging fast to one of the cars, 
they were obliged to tear her away ; the train started, she 
threw herself down to the ground. We went away from those 
lamentations and shouts of hurra ; there was change for 
those going away, but for those who remained there was only 
want and sorrow, and everything reminded of those who had 
gone. I visited Heidelbe/g's castle-ruin on a fresh, warm 
summer day. Cherry-trees and elders were growing into the 
rooms and halls of the ruin ; birds were flying chirping about. 
All at once a voice called my name ; it was Kestner, the 
Hanoverian Ambassador at Rome, the son of Werther's Lotte. 
He was visiting Germany j that was our last meeting ; he 
died the year after. 

The last of July I came back again to Copenhagen. Her 
majesty the widow-queen, Caroline Amelia, honored me with 
a gracious invitation to Sorgenfri (Sans Souci). I spent several 
days here, occupying the rooms of the deceased Privy-Coun- 
selor Adler. Many recollections of my life from boyhood, 



3 j6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

from those bright and better days, went through my soul, 
which turned thankfully toward the loving God. I became 
better acquainted with the country round about, which I had 
but slightly seen before. I learned to appreciate more the 
pious, tender mind of that noble queen so tried by sorrow. 

I had written the story-comedy, " The Elder-Mother/' for 
the Casino. The director and all the actors thought a great 
deal of it. At the first representation it was received with 
great applause, although some hissing was heard, but that 
always happened of late to every new work. " Dagbladet " (a 
daily paper) expressed itself in a friendly manner of it, but 
" Berlingske Tidende " and " Flyveposten " (" Berling's Ga- 
zette" and the " Flying Post"), which at other times have always 
spoken well of me, " broke their sticks " over the work, and 
could not find any coherence in it. I answered by an analysis 
which discovered a little story, carefully wrought. Meanwhile it 
found acceptation with most of our poets. Heiberg and Inge- 
mann, each of them, wrote me a beautiful letter ; the pastor 
Boye expressed himself very warmly and tenderly ; and I 
believe that " The Elder-Mother " was the only piece he ever 
went to see in the Casino. But the newspaper critique in 
general had its way, and cooled the interest of the people. I 
felt convinced then that the most part of my countrymen have 
not much liking for the fantastic ; they do not like to mount 
too high, but would rather stay on the ground and feed them- 
selves in a sensible fashion upon common dramatic dishes 
made exactly according to the receipt-book. Director Lange 
continued meantime to give the piece, and by degrees it 
became understood, and was at last received with undivided 
applause. At one of the representations it happened that I 
was seated at the side of a good looking old man from the 
country. Early in the first scene of the piece, where the 
elemental spirits come forth, he turned toward me, whom he 
did not know, and said by way of introduction, " Really, 
that is a piece of damned nonsense they'll have to get out 
f!»_«Yes, it is a little difficult," I answered, " but after 
that it will be more intelligible : there will come a barber's 
shop, where they shave and do a great deal of love-making ! " 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 397 

" Ah indeed ! is that so ? " said he. When the piece was 
finished he was very well pleased with it, or he had perhaps 
come to know that I was the author, for now he turned toward 
me and assured me " that it was an exceedingly good piece, 
and very intelligible ; that it was only in the beginning there 
were some difficulties to overcome ! " 

" The Merman " was brought out in the Royal Theatre in 
February, 1853. Professor Glaser had made an abundance 
of melodies to flow over the poem. It was northern music 
that people heard, and that they appreciated. 

I left Copenhagen at Whitsuntide and went out to Inge- 
mann's in the fresh woody country, to that home where my 
heart, ever since I was a school- boy at Slagelse, drew me 
regularly every summer. There all things were unchanged, 
and there hearts remained the same. However far the wild 
swan may fly, it always returns to that old well-known place 
at the wood-lake ; and I have the wild swan's nature. 

Ingemann is no doubt our most popular poet ; his romances, 
which criticism thought immediately to gnaw to death, live yet 
and are read ; they have made their way to high and low in 
the northern realms ; they are read by the Danish peasant, and 
through them he comes to love his country and its historic 
memories ; a deep harmony is heard in every poem, even in 
the smaller ones, and I will mention one of them, not very 
well known, "The Dumb Girl." In this it is as if the tree 
of poetry was stirred in its top by great movements that are 
gone in a second. They are movements we have all felt, and 
our grandchildren will hear them from the old people's mouth": 
Ingemann has, besides, humor and the eternal youth of the 
poet. It is a happiness to know a nature like his, and still 
happier am I to know that I have in him a tried and steadfast 
friend ! 

Here in the room hung with pictures, where the lime-trees 
outside throw shadows, and the lake shines bright and blue, 
everything almost is just as it was, when I, a scholar from the 
Slagelse school, came here on a beautiful summer day. And 
the memory of all that I have seen and experienced since 
then, indeed the whole story of my life, seems to be a garland 
that is woven here. 



39^ 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



Spring, which commenced so beautifully that year, bade me 
welcome with green woods and the songs of nightingales ; 
and soon all that was only empty glory, — heavy, anxious 
days were rising. Cholera broke out in Copenhagen. I was 
no longer in Seeland, but I heard of all the horrors and fatal- 
ities of that disease. The first near and painful death-news 
that came to me was that of the poet, the pastor Boye. He 
met me in recent years so kindly and appreciatingly that he 
had become very dear to me. 

One of the most painful and sorrowful days of that bitter 
period was a single day which should have been devoted to 
joy and merriment. I was at Glorup, where Count Moltke- 
Hvitfeldt celebrated his silver-wedding. I was the only stranger 
invited, and my invitation had been given a year and day 
before. All the peasants of his estate were guests. I presume 
that more than sixteen hundred were assembled here. Every- 
thing was rich and festive ; dancing and merriment went on, 
music was heard ; flags were floating, rockets rose in the 
air ; and in the midst of all that jubilation I received a letter 
telling me that two of my friends were taken away. The 
angel of death went from house to house ; now on the last 
evening he stopped at my home of homes, — at Collin's 
house. " We have to-day all moved from the place ! " they 
wrote. " God only knows what will happen to-morrow ! " It 
was as if I had got the message that all, to whom my heart 
had clung so fast, were to be taken away from me. I lay 
weeping in my room. Outside gay dancing-music and hurras 
sounded, rockets shone ; it could not be endured. New mourn- 
ing-messages came daily. At Svendborg too the cholera had 
broken out ; my physician and my friends all advised me to 
remain in the country ; in Jutland more than one hospitable 
house was opened for me. 

A great part of the summer was spent with Michael Drew- 
sen at Silkeborg. I have given a description of that beautiful 
country, which reminds one in its nature of the woody tracts 
of the Black Forest and Scotland's grand solitary heaths, and 
I have given some of its memories and traditions. In the 
midst of that beautiful country and in a hospitable home, I went 
about deeply afflicted ; my heart was very sorrowful. I got 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



399 



into a nervous suffering state, and endured the torments of 
uncertainty. When the postilion's horn sounded, I ran away 
immediately to get letters and papers \ I was ready to sink 
down during the minutes I had to wait \ I was tormented, 
depressed, and sick at heart ; and as soon as the disease at 
Copenhagen began to decrease so far that they thought I 
could return, I hastened to the dear friends whom I had 
thought never more to see again. 

My publisher, Chancery-Counselor Mr. Reitzel, died in the 
spring, shortly before the epidemic broke out. We had, during 
my whole career as author, been associated with true sympathy, 
and that became fixed in friendship ; his last undertaking was 
the determination to bring out a cheap edition of my collected 
writings in Germany. Seven years before a collected edition 
had already been issued, followed by " Das Marchen Meines 
Lebens," — a sketch only, but one that was received abroad 
with hearty interest and sympathy. 

I have found a like reception in England and America, 
where it was published in a translation by Mary Howitt. The 
happy fortune was now to be mine, of publishing, while yet 
young, my collected writings in Danish ; a matter of con- 
sequence, since I could then get in order, and also lop off one 
or another of the too leafless branches ; my autobiography 
would besides place the whole in its right light. I would not 
give the earlier sketch, but an entire fresh and full recollection 
of all that I had felt and enjoyed. An account of the many 
men of note whom I had come across in my path of life ; the 
impressions gained from my life and my whole circumstances \ 
everything which I thought, when noted down for a coming 
generation, might have the interest which attaches to contem- 
porary history, as also a plain presentation of what God had 
permitted me to endure and overcome, that might fortify many 
a struggling soul. 

The work was commenced in the fall of 1853, in the very 
month of October that, twenty-five years before, saw me re- 
ceive my examen as a student. Of late the custom had pre- 
vailed for each section to celebrate its twenty-fifth artium feast, 
if I dare call it so. The most interesting part of the whole 
feast was the first meeting in the reception-hall, the seeing 






400 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

again of so many whom we had not met with for so long a 
time. Some of them were grown fleshy and unfamiliar look- 
ing ; others old and gray-haired ; but a youthful mind at that 
moment shone in all eyes. This meeting was for me the true 
bouquet of the feast ; at the table speeches were made and 
several songs sung : one of them I had written, and it expresses 
entirely my feeling then, and as it seemed that of the others 
also as it appeared. 

Professor Clausen made a beautiful and eloquent speech, 
drinking a glass for Paludan-Miiller and me, the two poets 
who among the students of that year had maintained a very 
distinguished place in literature. 

A few days after I received the following printed cir- 
cular : — 

"At the meeting of the students of 1828, on the twenty- 
second of October, wishes were expressed for a common un- 
dertaking, by which the remembrance of that year which had 
brought us 'together might be preserved. After some consider- 
ation we agreed to act upon the suggestion of that year's ' four 
great and twelve small poets/ and founding a legacy under the 
name of 'The Andersen-Paludan-Miiller Legacy/ which in 
time, after annual contributions had increased it to a consider- 
ble sum, should be applied to the support of a Danish poet 
who had no public employment." 

How far and to what this will develop, lies in the future ; 
but the thought makes me glad, and it is an acknowledgment, 
a homage shown by Danish students, by the comrades of one 
and the same student-year. 

Travelling-life is like a refreshing bath to my spirit and 
body. I went away a few weeks in the following year, to 
Vienna, Trieste, and Venice, to enjoy spring in its freshness. 
Only three or four pictures of life having any importance are 
noted down of this trip. The cherry-trees were in blossom in 
the dear Saxon home at Maxen : the lime-kilns smoked ; 
Konigstein, Lilienstein, and all those miniature mountains 
rose before me, and beckoned to me ; it was as if only a long 
winter-night — but one disturbed by an ugly cholera-dream — 
lay between the present and the time I last stood here. I 
geemed to see the same ttfeoming, the same skies and shad- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 401 

ows, the same hospitable home and dear friends. Upon the 
wings of steam I flew through mountains and over valleys. I 
caught sight of St. Stephen's Tower, and in the imperial city, 
after many years, I was again to meet with Jenny Lind Gold- 
schmidt. 

Her husband, whom I saw for the first time here, received 
me very kindly ; a sturdy little son gazed at me with his big 
eyes. I heard her sing again \ it was the "same soul, the same 
fountain of music ! Taubert's little song, " Ich musz nun 
einmal singen ich weisz nicht warum " (" I must sing just once, 
I know not why "), as formed by her lips was the song of a 
jubilating warbling-bird ; the nightingale cannot whistle like 
that, the thrush cannot quiver \ the soul of a child, the soul 
of thought must be in it, — it must be sung by Jenny Gold- 
schmidt. Her power and greatness lie in dramatic delivery 
and truth, and yet it is only in the concert-hall that she per- 
mits us to perceive this in the arias and songs which she then 
gives. She has left the stage ; that is a wrong done her spirit : 
it is to give up her mission, the mission that God chose for 
her. 

In trouble, and yet happy, wonderfully full of thoughts, I 
hastened toward Illyria, that country which Shakespeare has 
chosen for many of his immortal scenes, — the country where 
Viola finds her happiness. There was a surprisingly charming 
view at sunset, as it was displayed to me, when suddenly from 
the high mountain-brow I looked far below upon the glowing 
Adriatic; the brightness made Trieste look still more darkj 
the gas-lamps were just lit, the streets radiated in outlines of 
fire 1 from the carriage we looked down as from a balloon in its 
slow descent ; the shining sea, the gleaming streets, seen in 
those few minutes, remain in the memory for years. From 
Trieste we arrived in six hours by steamer at Venice. 

" A sad wreck upon the water," was the impression it made 
upon me the first time I was here in 1833 ; now I came 
here again, seasick from the swells of the Adriatic. It seemed 
to me as if I could not get rid of it on land, but that I had 
only gone from a smaller to a larger ship. The only pleasant 
thing to me was that the silent city was fastened to the living 
continent by the railway mole. "Venice seen in the moon- 
26 






402 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

light, is a charming sight, — a wonderful dream well worth 
knowing. The silent gondolas are gliding like the boats of 
Charon between the high palaces, which are mirrored in the 
water. But in the day-time it is rather unpleasant here. The 
canals have dirty water, in which you see floating stumps of 
cabbage, lettuce-leaves, and all such things ; water-rats come 
out from the crevices of the houses \ the sun burns hotly down 
between the walls. 

I was glad to leave that wet grave, and the railway steam 
brought me speedily over the endless dike bordered by 
-muddy, slimy banks and sand-flats ; on the main-land the vine 
leaf hung in rich garlands, the black cypress pointed up to- 
ward the blue air. Verona wag the end of my travel that 
day. Several hundred men were sitting upon the steps of the 
Amphitheatre ; they did not fill it up much ; they were looking 
at a comedy, performed in a theatre erected in the midst of 
the Amphitheatre, with painted side-scenes, illuminated with 
Italian sunshine. The orchestra played dance-music ; the 
whole had the look of a travesty, — an exhibition so piteously 
modern here upon the remnants of the old Roman times. 
During my first visit in Venice I was stung by a scorpion in 
my hand. Now in the neighboring city, as Verona has become 
by means of the railway, I had the same fate. I had stings 
upon my neck and cheeks that smarted and swelled. I suf- 
fered extremely, and in that state I saw the Lake of Garda, 
the romantic Riva, with its luxuriant valley of vine leaves, but 
pain and fever drove me away from here. We travelled the 
whole night in the clearest moonlight over a wild, romantic 
road, one of the most beautiful I have seen, — a picture of 
nature that Salvator Rosa's fancy could not create upon can- 
vas. I have the impression of it as of a beautiful dream in 
the midst of a night of pains. 

A little after midnight we reached Trient, which gave the 
traveller an epitome of all the discomforts. We were obliged 
to wait at the city gate till a gendarme of Italy came loitering 
along and asked for our passports ; those were delivered in a 
dark night into strange hands, with the promise that we should 
receive them back again early next morning, without any 
ticket or receipt, — nothing to rely upon in Austria, so strict 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



403 



about passports. Then they led us through long, pitch-dark 
streets to a palace-like but dead-alive hotel, where, after long 
knocking and crying, a drowsy, half-dressed cameriere came 
out and conducted us up cold, broad stairs, through long 
entries and dark corridors, into a large, high-studded, antique 
saloon with two made beds, each large enough for a whole 
family, children and all. A drowsy lamp stood upon a dusty 
marble table ; the doors could not be shut ; we looked through 
them into large rooms, also with beds big enough for whole 
families. There were secret doors in the wall, privy stairs, 
and red wine spilt on the floor, looking very like blood-stains. 
These were my surroundings, and it was my last night in 
Italy. My wounds burnt, my blood burnt ; it was hopeless 
to think of sleep and repose. At last the morning dawned, the 
bells sounded from the vetturino's horses, and we drove from 
Trient and its naked mulberry-trees, — the leaves had been 
picked and carried to market. By the Brenner Pass we 
reached Munich, passing through Innsbruck. Here I found 
friends, care, and help. The physician of the. King, the amia- 
ble old Privy-Councilor Gietl, cared for me most kindly ; and 
after fourteen somewhat painful days I was able to receive 
the royal invitation to the castle of Hohenschwangau, where 
King Max and his consort spent the summer time. A story 
ought to be written about the , fairy of the Alpine rose, who 
from his flower flutters through Hohenschwangau's picture- 
crowded saloons, where he gets sight of something even more 
beautiful than his flower. Between the Alps and the River 
Lech lies an open, fertile valley with a transparent, dark-green 
lake at either end, one of them a little higher than the other ; 
and here, upon a marble crag, the castle of Hohenschwangau 
rises majestically. The castle of Schwanstein stood here be- 
fore ; Welfs, Hohenstaufs, and Schyrs were once its lords ; 
their deeds live still in the pictures painted on the castle 
walls. King Max, as crown prince, has restored the castle 
and made it to be a state mansion. None of the castles on 
the Rhine are so beautiful as Hohenschwangau, and none has 
such surroundings, — the wide valley and the snow-covered 
Alps. The lofty, arched gate rises magnificently, where two 
chivalrous figures are standing with the arms of Bavaria and 



404 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Schwangau, — a diamond and swan. In the castle yard, where 
the water-jet is playing from the wall, which is adorned with 
the image of a Madonna, painted alfresco, three mighty lime- 
trees throw shadows ; and in the garden, amongst an abun- 
dance of flowers, where the most beautiful roses are blooming 
on the lawn, we might fancy ourselves to have found again 
Alhambra's lion- well ; the ice-cold spring, even at that eleva- 
tion, sends its fountain forty feet up into the air. An armory, 
where ancient armor with helmets and 'spears seem living 
cavaliers, is the first place we enter ; and now opens a series 
of richly painted halls, where even the variegated window- 
panes relate legends and histories, where every wall is like a 
whole book, which tells us of times and men long gone by. 

" Hohenschwangau is the most beautiful Alpine rose I saw 
here among the mountains ; may it be also always the flower 
of fortune here." These words I wrote in German in an al- 
bum, just as they are in my heart, and ever will remain there. 

Here I spent some charming, happy days ! King Max re- 
ceived me, if I dare say so, as a dear guest ; the noble, intel- 
lectual King showed me great sympathy and favor ; the Queen, 
a born princess of Bavaria, of rare beauty and lovely woman- 
hood, was presented to me by his majesty himself. After din- 
ner, the first day, I drove with the King in a little open car- 
riage — a quite charming drive, certainly — a couple of miles, 
as far as into the Austrian Tyrol, and this time I was not 
asked for passport or stopped on the way. The country had 
a more picturesque look ; the peasants stood on the road-side 
saluting their King ; the carriages we met stopped while his 
majesty passed by. This charming drive lasted a couple of 
hours among the sunny lofty mountains ; and during all that 
time the King talked with me very kindly of " The Story of my 
Life/' which he had recently read, and asked about several 
of those Danish persons mentioned in it; saying, besides, 
how excellently all had turned out for me, and what happy 
feelings I ought to have after having overcome so much, and 
at last been fairly acknowledged as a poet. I told him that 
my life certainly very often seemed to me like a story, rich 
and wonderfully changing. I had known what it was to be 
poor and alone, and then to be in rich saloons ; I knew what 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



405 



it was to be scorned and to be honored, — even this hour, driv- 
ing now by the side of a king among the sunny Alps, this was 
a chapter in the story of my life ! We talked of the most re- 
cent Scandinavian literature ; I mentioned Salomon de Caus, 
Robert Fulton, and Tycho Brahe, — how the art of poetry in 
our time brought forward these men of the time. Genius, 
heart, and piety shone through all the words of the noble 
King ; it was and is still one of the most memorable hours 
I have spent here. 

In the evening I read aloud to the royal pair the stories 
"Under the Willow " and "There is no Doubt." Along with 
Von Donniges I ascended one of the nearest mountains, and 
had a view of the charming and grand scenery. Time passed 
too quickly. The Queen allowed me to write a few words in 
her album. I perceived there, among the names of emperors 
and kings, one from the realms of science, Professor Liebig, 
whose kind and winning nature I had learned to know and 
admire in Munich. 

With tender heart and profound gratitude to the amiable 
royal couple, I left Hohenschwangau, where they told me that 
I should be welcome again. I carried with me a large bou- 
quet of Alpine roses and forget-me-nots in the carriage, which 
brought me to Fiissen. 

From Munich my homeward journey took me through Wei- 
mar. Carl Alexander had begun his reign ; he was just 
then sojourning in the castle " Wilhelmsthal," near Eisenach, 
whither I went and spent happy days with the noble prince in 
that wonderfully beautiful country in the midst of the Thu- 
ringer wood. 

The old Wartburg, on which the now reigning Grand Duke 
in the course of years has spent great sums of his own fortune, 
in order to restore it to its primitive style, was now almost fin- 
ished, with fine pictures on the walls, that told the castle's tradi- 
tions and history. Already the Minnesinger Hall was adorned 
in the grandeur of its time of yore with rows of columns ; and 
what a view there was here over woods and mountains, the 
whole scenery that existed in the minnesinger time — the 
Venus Mountain, where Tannhauser disappeared ; the three 
" Gleichen ; " even the wood-solitariness, just as Walther von 




406 the story of my life. 

der Vogelweidet and Heinrich von Ofterdingen knew it. 
Tradition and history have here their whole unchanged plan. 
On the little castle down in the town of Eisenach lives the 
Duke of Orleans's widow, with her two sons, the Count of 
Paris and the Duke of Nemours. I heard from the most dif- 
ferent persons how much she and the children were loved by 
all there, how very much good she did as far as her means 
permitted, how kind-hearted and sympathizing she proved her- 
self, — a true blessing to that little town. I met in the street 
the young princes with their teacher ; they were plainly 
dressed, but looked wide awake and good ; the Grand Duke 
of Weimar himself presented me to the Duchess. Quickly 
there passed through my thoughts, what she had suffered and 
endured, the whole change in her life, and involuntarily the 
tears came into my eyes, even before I had begun to speak. 
She remarked it, took my hand in a friendly way, and when I 
looked at her dead husband's picture on the wall, as young 
and blooming as when I had seen him at Paris at the ball at 
the Hotel de Ville, and spoke of that time, tears burst from 
her eyes ; she talked of him, of her children, and told me 
kindly that they knew my stories. There was a kindness, a 
sincerity, a sadness, and yet a womanly courage, such I had 
imagined might belong to Helene of Orleans. She was in her 
travelling-dress, intending to go by the railway train a few 
miles off. " Will you dine with me to-morrow ? " she asked. 
I was obliged to answer, that I intended to leave the same 
day : " In a year I shall come back again here ! " "A year ! " 
she repeated ; " how much can happen in a year, so much hap- 
pens in a few hours ! " and tears and thoughtfulness mingled 
in her eyes. On taking leave, she held out her hand to me, and 
I left that noble princess deeply affected. Her destiny has 
been heavy, but her heart is royally grand and strong in con- 
fidence toward God. 

I was soon again in Denmark, and busily engaged not only . 
with the edition of my collected writings, but also with the 
translation of MosenthaFs popular comedy, "Der Sonnwend- 
hof." During my stay in Vienna I had seen it at the Burg 
Theatre, and was much pleased with it. I drew the attention 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



407 



of State-Counselor Heiberg to it, but he took no notice of it. 
Director Lange, on the contrary, asked me if I could get it for 
the Casino, and through the intendant of the Burg Theatre I 
obtained the piece from Mosenthal, with privilege to treat it 
as I pleased. From its connection with Auerbach's " Village 
Tales," I chose the name, as more intelligible, " A Village 
Story 1 " and when it was brought on the stage it had, as we 
know, a great success, and has been given repeatedly. I added 
besides several songs, which are necessary for any representa- 
tion on the stage of the Casino. I had also made Anna in 
the last act, up in the Alpine cottage, take up a burning piece 
of wood, and by the brightness of that recognize Mathias, as 
she saw him when the Ilsang forge was on fire. Mosenthal 
afterward, by the aid of his Danish friends at Vienna, read 
my translation, and wrote me, immediately after, a letter full 
of gratitude and kindness ; and as to the few changes I had 
made in it, he added : " The songs are extremely well chosen • 
the effect in the last scene, the brandishing of the burning 
wood, is so plastic, that we think of adopting it here in the 
representations." % 

My wonder stories * {Eventyr) were, as I have before men- 
tioned, to be considered as given entire in the volume illus- 
trated by V. Pedersen ; the new ones which followed, and were 
still to appear, were now brought together under the name 
" Stories " (Historier), which name I think, in our language, is 
the most appropriate for my wonder stories in their widest 
significance. The common speech of the people places the 
plain narrative and the most fanciful description under this 
title ; nursery-tales, fables, and narratives are called by the 
child, by the peasant, and among the people generally, by the 
short name, stories. 

A few parts appeared in Danish .and German, and were 
received very kindly ; an English edition, with the title, " A 

1 Some of these have recently been dramatized in Germany and brought 
on th'e stage there, as "The Swineherd," which, under the title "The 
Princess von Seedcake," has passed through a good many representations, 
and seems to have been brought out at the Children's Theatre by C. J. 
Gorner. " The Little Mermaid " has been brought out as a fairy piece at 
the great theatre in Vienna. 



408 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



Poet's Day Dreams," was published by Richard Bentley. The 
review in " The Athenaeum," 1853, shows that Mary Howitt's 
altered opinion of me has not had any influence on the 
English critic's judgment. 1 Just at this time, when my fiftieth 
year is reached, and the collected writings published, the 
" Danish Monthly " prints a review of them, written by Mr. 
Grimur Thomsen. The depth and warmth which this author 
has before shown us in his book on Byron, are manifested 
also in this lesser work ; he discloses a knowledge of and 
feeling for the works he speaks of: it is to me almost as if 
our Lord would that I should finish this chapter of my life 
with the fulfillment of H. C. Orsted's trusting words to me in 
the heavy days when I was misunderstood ! My home has 
brought me a rich bouquet of appreciation and encourage- 
ment ! 

In Grimur Thomsen's review of my stories he has just 
touched in a few words the right string, which gives a sound 
from the depth of my poesy. It is surely no accident that 
the examples intended to show the general significance of my 
work are taken from my stories, and what I have most lately 
written in these last days : " The wonder story holds a merry 
court of justice over shadow and substance, over the outward 
shell and the inward kernel. There flows a double stream 
through it : an ironic over-stream, that plays and sports with 
great and small things, that plays shuttlecock with what is 
high and low ; and then the deep under-stream, that honestly 
and truly brings all to its right place. That is the true, the 
Christian humor ! " What I wished and tried to attain is here 
clearly expressed. 



The story of my life up to this hour lies now unrolled before 
me, a rich and beautiful canvas, stirring my faith : even out 
of evil came good, out of pain came happiness, a poem of 
thoughts deeper than I could write. I feel that I am fortune's 
child, so many of the noblest and best of my time have met 
me with affection and sincerity. Seldom has my confidence in 
men been deceived ! the bitter, heavy days bear also in them 
the germ of blessings ! the injustice which I believed myself 
1 See page 367, ante. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 409 

suffering, the hands that stretch heavily into my growing life, 
— these have brought me still some good. 

As we move onward toward God, what is bitter and painful 
vanishes, what is beautiful remains ; one sees it as the rainbow 
on the dark sky. May men judge me mildly as I in my heart 
judge them ! A confession of life has for all noble and good 
men the power of a holy shrift ; here, then, I yield myself, free 
from fear, openly and confidently : as if seated among dear 
friends, I have related the story of my life. 

H. C. Andersen. 
Copenhagen, April 2, 1855. 






THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

CONTINUED FROM APRIL, 1855, T ° DECEMBER, 1867. 



IN the Danish edition of my collected writings, " The Story 
of my Life " closed with my fiftieth birthday, April 2d, 
1855 ; since then thirteen years, rich in experience and 
weighty, have gone by with their days of light and of dark- 
ness. What I have to tell of them is prepared to accompany 
the new American edition of my works, published by Hurd 
and Houghton in New York. 

From my Danish home, Copenhagen, from this side of the . 
great sea, which is made now by the telegraph thread to be 
nothing but a low wall separating neighbors, I tell my story 
for friends in the world's great country, tell it as I would for 
my own beloved Denmark ; and they will surely hear it with 
good will, judge it kindly, and understand that it is no vanity 
when I say aloud that I am the child of fortune, and with 
humble heart wonder that our Lord should bestow on me so 
much gladness and blessing. 

It is far easier to write one's youthful life than to relate what 
has passed in one's later years \ just as in old age most people 
are long-sighted and see best objects that are far ofT, so is it 
also with what belongs to the soul ; with all recollection of what 
we have passed through and has stirred us, it is not quite easy 
to keep the scenes in the order of time which they had : yet in 
this also I am somewhat favored. 

When the poet Ingemann died his widow sent* me all the 
letters I had written him from my school-boy days till his 
death ; with these and her comments I have been able to give 
what unfolded itself in my life year by year since April, 1855, 
when I closed my autobiography. 

And I may well begin with Ingemann and his wife. " The 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



411 



Old People by the Forest Lake," * which he wrote on a picture 
of their house at Soro and sent me. I never, in any year, passed 
there without spending some days with these charming people. 
And so in the spring of 1855 my first visit was to the home of 
the Ingemanns/ where I and where whoever came must feel 
that here lived a man good and more than good. It was a 
happy life they led, two loving souls ; they lived over again 
the pretty tale of " Philemon and Baucis." Everything went 
on in a quiet, happy way. Ingemann, I believe, never gave 
parties ; people dropped in of an evening of their own accord, 
and often the callers became quite a party ; but it was like a 
table that set itself. All was as if ordered and carried out by 
invisible little elves ; there was no anxious bustle to be seen, 
but all made themselves agreeable with lively conversation. 
Ingemann especially was the most quick and entertaining \ 
particularly when he told the ghost stories that are commonly 
connected with the monastery here and its neighborhood, he 
told them with such a humorous smile that one who knew him 
knew at once that the stories were made up at the moment, 
suggested by one thing or another that came up in conversa- 
tion \ frequently he borrowed the names of real persons to help 
out his stories, but always good-naturedly. He snapped his fin- 
ger at all the trivial topics of the day and twaddle ; he shook 
by the neck all poor and ungenerous critics. A few of his 
most read romances there were which became popular, but peo- 
ple have been unjust toward him, and of that I also can com- 
plain. The conversation one evening turned on this, and Inge- 
mann told a pleasant story full of comfort and a moral for both 
of us. The good old gardener of the academy, Nissen, used to 
say very civilly, " You are in the right, and I thank you," but 
he did not change his opinion for all that, but did as he liked. 
" Do you know," asked Ingemann, " how this saying origi- 
nated ? It is quite notable. When the gardener Nissen was 
employed at the academy he displayed good ability in his 
work, still he was obliged to swallow a good deal of talk about 
it : one said the work should be done thus, another so, and 
he took it hard, got into bad humor and went and fretted 
about it. He met in the garden, one day, a little gray man 
with a red cap on ; the little man asked him who he was. 
1 De Gamle ved Skovsoen. 



412 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" ' I am Nissen,' answered the gardener. 

"'Nissen?' said the little man. 'Yes, you are named 
Nissen, but I am the Nis {Danish Nissen) of the academy, 
the house Nis. Why do you look so depressed ? ' 

" ' 0/ said the gardener Nissen, ' all that I do with my best 
endeavor^ I get no thanks for ; one says this, another says 
that. I cannot do anything to suit, and that troubles me : that 
is what makes me sad.' 

" ' I'll help you there/ said the little Nis, ' but you must 
serve me for eight whole days. I live over there back of the 
lake, where I have a garden that you shall take care of. I 
will meantime tell you beforehand there are a good many 
queer animals over there, kept in cages, — monkeys, parrots, and 
cockatoos, — that make a murderous noise, but they don't bite.' 

" ' Good ! ' said the gardener Nissen, and so he went with 
the Nis of the academy and took care of his garden for eight 
days. The small creatures were all the time screaming around 
him. When the week was finished the little fellow came, and 
asked him how it came that he saw him now in such good 
spirits and so well. 

" ' Did you get well because there was such a screeching going 
on?' 

" * O, the screeching,' said the gardener Nissen ; ' I let that 
go into one ear and out of the other \ they scolded me and 
said that all I did was done wrong ; but I laughed and nodded 
to them and said, " You are in the right ; thank you," and so 
I minded my business : the screeching is not anything to lay 
to heart' 

" * Just so do you carry yourself over there in the academy 
garden, and mind your business.' 

" The gardener Nissen followed the advice, kept his good 
humor, and the phrases ' You are in the right ; thank you,' — 
4 Shouldn't we act just so?'" wound up Ingemann, with a 
roguish smile. 

He was full of similar little stories, and very inventive. 
For the rest, his judgment was tender ; the love of father-land, 
of the beautiful and the good, grew and flourished in this true 
poetic home, where I always had the delightful confidence, — 
Here am I a dear and welcome guest. Quickly passed the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



413 



hours here with the two dear old folks by the wood lake. I 
could thoroughly enjoy this idyllic life, but I began to feel 
such a twitching in my wings that I must get on : the hospita- 
ble Basnos and Holsteenborg threw open to me a manor life, 
prosperous and happy. From there, the first thing in the 
summer, I went to* Maxen, near Dresden, where a tree of my 
planting, which I had sheltered and taken care of, grew and 
flourished. An oak, no larger than I could span with my two 
hands, I planted in the garden in front of the house, grows now 
with large branches ; and a letter of mine to Ingemann will 
give more fully a picture of the journey and the stay there : — 

" Maxen, near Dresden, July 12, 1855. 
■ c Dear Ingemann. — You remember in my autobiography 
my tree at Maxen, where my friends the Serres live. You will 
know, then, a little of the place where I now am. It is near 
Saxon Switzerland. It is very beautiful. My tree stands fresh 
and hearty, down to its very roots ; from the bench up here un- 
der the tree I have a bird's-eye view of a large village and a 
meadow where the hay stands stacked. The bluish mountains 
of Bohemia lie before me, and about me grow chestnut and 
cherry-trees. The sheep move about with bells till I think I 
am among the Alps. Serre's property contains besides, a fine 
old manor-house with arched passages and a great tower. 
Madame Serre is so good, so untiringly attentive to me. I 
hear fine music, and the reading of poems \ famous and notable 
people, and other gentlefolk flit in and out here, in this hospi- 
table home, till it seems like an open inn. I certainly have en- 
tire freedom, and that one does not always get when he is to 
be an agreeable guest ; so I quite enjoy myself. Besides, I feel 
in this journey more than ever before the need of family life, — 
I care so much about being with people \ so that I care less 
and less every day about visiting Italy. I shall probably stay 
at home next winter. Now I am going to take a flying trip 
of eight days to Munich, and thence to Switzerland, where I 
expect to have a happy time touring among the Alps, if God 
will but give me health and a cheerful mind, — these blessings 
I have missed hitherto on this journey. This, to be sure, was 
only during the days, but they were painfully oppressive. Ham- 



4H 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



burg seemed to me an empty exchange on the hot summer, 
day \ the road to Berlin, was a dusty hot baker's oven. I had 
no wish to visit any one in Berlin, and hurried away to Maxen, 
out in God's own country, to friendly people. To travel is 
to live ! Now do you think about setting out with your wife : 
four hours from Stettin to Berlin, and then five hours more to 
Dresden, where she longs to go and visit the picture galleries. 
Forget the old time, the long journey it then was into the cap- 
ital of Saxony ; now we fly on Faust's mantle. The travel 
by rail is the most poetic flight that our heavy-bodied people 
can take safely and soundly." 



In Munich I found a letter from Ingemann, which contained 
kind words from him and my many friends over the book I 
had then just published, " The Story of my Life." The letter 
closed as follows : — 

"You have just left your flourishing tree at Maxen, and 
your good friends that gathered about it ; but wherever your 
story-bird has flown out into the world, there you will find a 
fresh green tree, with friendly shadows and gentle eyes near 
by. If you go seeking such trees and such eyes on the Faust 
mantle, you will entice me after you (it's more like the beast 
that Dante rode by Virgil's side when he went through hell) ; 
and I am too old and stiff for that. Indeed, the world is be- 
ginning to rumble about me and our little monastery here, with 
its steam and its whistle ; and when the mountains come to us, 
we have as little need as Mohammed to go running after them. 
The poet's house ought to be on wheels, so that it can go roll- 
ing off when the locomotive comes. Every one to his taste. 
Your house stands for the present by the locomotive's huge 
dragon-tail." 

I remained some little time in artistic Munich, and spent 
many memorable hours with Kaulbach and his family. At Pro- 
fessor Liebig's I heard Geibel read the first acts of his tragedy, 
" Brunhilde ; " among the guests invited to hear the play was 
the celebrafed actress, Miss Seebach, who was to take the first 
part in his drama. I had enjoyed seeing her act in several 
plays, and I knew that she was regarded with great respect 
by those who knew her. One thing I desire to say : There 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



415 



is a poor custom by which the public, after the tragedy is over, 
call out the murdered heroine, and it is still worse to see 
her come out smiling and courtesying. A great actress should 
break up this evil custom, and not come out, no matter how 
loudly they called for her. Miss Seebach admitted that I was 
right, and I urged her to begin the reform. 

The evening after, they performed w Cabal and Love," 1 where 
she appeared as Louise; and after she had drunk the poison, 
she was called out. She did not come. I was delighted. The 
call for her became louder, still she held out ; but the clamor 
and shouting rose into a very storm, she showed herself, and 
so I had made nothing in my attack on a dramatic vice. 

It is a delight and indeed a necessity for me to travel a 
little out and about in the world ; economy and frugality at 
home have made this possible to me \ but I have often thought 
how much finer it would be if one were so rich that he could 
take a friend with him, and this has been permitted to me also 
a few times, in spite of my narrow means. I have several 
times received from princes presents of breast-pins and gold 
rings \ my noble donors will, I am sure, pardon me, and be 
glad that I sent these articles to the jewelers, got money for 
them, and so could say to a dear young friend who had never 
seen anything outside of his home : " Take a trip with me for 
a month or two, as long as the money lasts." The bright eyes 
I have then seen gave me far more pleasure than the glitter- 
ing stones in the breast-pins and rings. This time there accom- 
panied me from Munich, Edgar Collin, who, with his interest 
in all that he saw, his happy youthful spirit, and kind atten- 
tion to me, made the journey very delightful. We went by 
Ulm and Wiirtemberg to Wildbad Gastein, where my friend, 
State- Councilor Edward Collin, with his family, was staying 
during the season. 

The Black Forest, in which Auerbach's " Village Stories " 
had their origin, I visited for the first time. It was bright, 
sunny weather, and now began our happy life together. Then 
again I mounted the vapor dragon's back, as Ingemann called 
the railway train, for a greater country, — for Switzerland, with 
its deep lakes and lofty mountains. From Lucerne I wished to 

1 Kabale og Kjcerlighed. 



41 & THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

take the steamboat with my young companion to Fluellen ; he 
was taken sick on board, and felt worse and worse ; so I de- 
termined to stop at the next landing-place, which was the 
village of Brunnen. My young friend was well taken care 
of in the hotel there, and on the next day was well enough to 
want to read some book. The landlord brought him several, 
and among them was a Swiss almanac. In it was a portrait 
of Humboldt, as representative of science 3 and hard by it was 
a portrait of H. C. Andersen, the fairy-tale poet. 

" Here is your portrait ! " cried Edgar. The landlord looked 
at it and at me, gave me a friendly grasp of the hand, and at 
once I found a friend in him, and friends, too, in his two sisters, 
who managed the house. One of these, Agathe, was, like her 
brother, very musical. She would give me a whole artistic 
evening with her music. Always afterward, when I came to 
Switzerland, I visited these friends, who still live there ; they 
are of old Swiss stock ; in Schiller's " William Tell," their 
name is given as Auf der Mauer. 

The accident of the journey, Collin's illness, and the con- 
sequent interruption of the whole trip there at the lake, really 
was a sprout from which grew a great deal of pleasure for both 
of us, and for me not only at the time, but in after years. At a 
later visit I had a pleasure I had not dreamed of. The even- 
ing before the day I was to set out, there glided out in front 
of the hotel a boat with torches and music ; it looked charm- 
ing to us. All the guests at the hotel came out on the bal- 
cony. 

" What does it mean ? " I asked Agathe. 

" It is a greeting for you," said she. 

" O, don't fancy such a thing," I replied — "music on my 
account ! " 

" But it is," she replied. 

" Nonsense ! " said I. " It is all accidental ; and if I were 
to go out and thank them, how horribly ridiculous I should 
appear, when it was not meant for me at all ! " 

" It is for you," she persisted. I felt myself uncertain, but 
went meanwhile down to the shore, where several people had 
gathered, and where the boat had now stopped. I spoke to 
the first one who stepped ashore, saying, — 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



417 



" That was fine music. Whom was it for ? " 

M You/' said he, and now I pressed his hand and that of a 
few others. Whether the whole celebration was a piece of 
courtesy toward me by Agathe Auf der Mauer, or whether I 
really have in this little town many musical friends of my 
poesy, is not yet quite clear to me. But certain it is that 
Brunnen has become for me a memorable Swiss town. 

In Zurich lived the composer Wagner in exile. I knew his 
music, as I have before said. Liszt had warmly told me of the 
man himself. I went to his house, and was received in a 
friendly manner. Of the Danish composers he knew only 
Gade well ; we talked of his reputation, and then of Kuhlau, 
a composer for the flute, none of whose operas he had seen. 
Hartmann was known to him only by name. I got to telling 
him, therefore, of the great storehouse of Danish music, in 
strum ental and vocal, all the way from Schultz, Kunzen, and 
the elder Hartmann to Weyse, Kuhlau, Hartmann, and Gade. 
I named several of these composers' works, and told of Schall's 
ballet composition, and Wagner heard me with great attention. 

" 'Tis as if you told me a real fairy tale from the world of 
music, and rolled up for me the curtain that shuts off from 
me all beyond the Elbe," he said. 

I told him of the Swede Belmann, akin to Wagner in this, 
that both themselves wrote the text for their music, but in 
other respects quite opposed to each other. Wagner im- 
pressed me fully as having a most genial nature, and it was a 
most happy hour, — such a one as I have never since had. 

On the journey home, which led through Cassel, I called on 
Spohr ; he was living in his old place on the street that now 
bears his name. Since 1847, when we often met in London, 
I had not seen him, and now it was the last time ; a few years 
after the knell went through the country — Spohr is dead. 
How gay he was when I saw him at this last visit ! We talked 
of Hartmann's opera, " The Raven " 1 which he set a high 
value on, and wished to bring on the stage at Cassel ; he had 
even written to Hartmann about it, but it could not be brought 
about for want of a singer to take the part of Armilla. 

From Cassel I journeyed to Weimar to see my friends^ and 

1 Ravnen. 
27 



41 8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

most cordially as ever was received at the court. The interest 
of the hereditary Grand Duke Karl Alexander and Kappel- 
meister Listz in Hartmann's music brought "The Little Chris- 
tine/' * to which I had written the text, to be studied under the 
title of " Little Karin ; " it received the greatest praise from all 
the connoisseurs in music. 

The last of the year I was again in Copenhagen, where I 
prepared, for the Casino Theatre, Mosenthal's popular comedy, 
" Der Sonnvendhoff," to which I gave a name better under- 
stood by us, "A Village Story." I wrote for it a chorus and 
songs, and the piece was a success. 

With a few words from a letter which I wrote on the last 
evening of the year I will close the record of 1855 : — 

" Out of doors it is not wintry, but rather autumnal — rain 
and sleet, dirty streets that make themselves look like the 
JNTile with their deep mud. So I feel a pleasure in this in-door 
life, and if I continue in keeping with it, then perhaps I may do 
something : I wish that ' The Story of my Life ' was pub- 
lished ; then I may begin a new Life. I might produce a work 
which would merit the name of ' a work.' I wish that like you 
I might keep my freshness, and like you accomplish some- 
thing." 

1856. 

Already, on the second day of the year, came Ingemann's 
greeting and his thanks for the letter I wrote. " It is right 
good of you on New Year's Eve to stretch out your hand to 
us here in Soro, so that we here on New Year's morning can 
see the hand in spirit. You are a steadfast affectionate fellow, 
and we know it." 

The year was not so bright and happy as Ingemann had 
wished it for me. One can have days in which all kinds of mis- 
fortune seem to come together, and it is very certain that one 
also can have such years, and such was to me the year 1856. 
The year's drop of water was, it seemed to me, full of small, 
disagreeable animalculae, — discomforts, vexations, annoyances, 
which I will not place under the glass to show them ; for 
now they look as small as grains of sand, or little insects 

1 Liden Kirsten* 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



419 



that can fly into one's eye, and pain and burn one so long as 
they stay there, but get them out and look at them, and one 
says — the midge ! 

My whole thought and endeavor was to accomplish some- 
thing worth while. I was not, as Sibbern had believed and 
said, a pious, dreaming child-soul \ many religious struggles 
I had passed through to preserve faith and knowledge in 
the secret chamber of my heart. I wrote " To be or not to 
be," a romance of Danish life in war time. I made many 
studies for it, and read for it a great deal of what had beer- 
written on Materialism. It interested Ingemann to hear about 
it. I gave to him to read the remarkable book then just pub- 
lished, "Eritis sicut Deus." I attended Professor Esricht's lec- 
tures on Materialism. 

Ingemann wrote to me a letter characteristic of himself 
and his opinion in these words : — 

" When you favor me again with a letter, let me know what 
Esricht sets up against Materialism. He attacks it as if it 
were a personal living God, or a force of Nature ; the highest 
Lawgiver of the world's law, or an abstract Idea's idea, out of 
which his unknown laws are evolved, and which first appeals 
to man's consciousness as a dead first cause. In the last case 
you have that in your pious, ardent faith in God ; one can ask 
far more than what the knowledge of nature points out. Be- 
sides, we can surely always get some good from going to school 
to the students in nature, however old we maybe." 

In the summer I again was off on my journey, and once 
more at Maxen with my friends the Serres, where I wrote to 
Ingemann : — 

" Dear Friend, — I sent you a greeting from the station at 
Soro while I paused there. Soro had a most friendly aspect ; 
the lake shone with gold and purple. I am now at Maxen, 
where everything is clad in summer beauty ; the cherries are 
ripening, the roses are blooming, and my tree stands up 
hearty and strong on the edge of the cliff. We have here on 
a visit the author Gutzhow, whose latest play, i Ella's Suc- 
cess,' * you know, as well as his celebrated romance, ' Ritter 
1 Ella gjbr Lykhe. 



420 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

von Geiste.' If it had not been in nine parts, I should have 
read it. On Sunday my plan is to pay a visit in Weimar. 
The Grand Duke celebrates his birthday on the 24th of May. 
Goethe's c Faust/ second part, is to be given, and I am very 
glad that I should have come here now." 

In September I was again in Copenhagen : all my thoughts, 
all my time, were upon my romance, " To be or not to be," 
on which I myself set great store. It has seemed to me since, 
however, that all I had labored to gather and make my own 
touched me less than that one of God's gifts — the poetic 
thought in the book. 

i8S7. 

In April I wrote to Ingemann : " I have lately had a most 
welcome letter from Charles Dickens. He writes that he has 
this month finished his novel, ' Little Dorrit,' and is now a 
' free man.' He has a pretty country seat between Roches- 
ter and London, where he moves with his family in the begin- 
ning of June, and he expects me there. I shall find a pleasant 
home and dear friends. I am delighted at the invitation to go, 
and I will see if I can make my route by Soro the last of May, 
so as to be with you on your birthday, the 28th of May. In 
a week from now my romance, ' To be or not to be,' will be 
published. I have taken the liberty of dedicating it to the 
poet Ingemann and the philosopher Sibbern : you will be- 
lieve I am grateful to you." 

One of the first persons I read my new book to, when it 
was out, was her majesty the Queen Dowager Caroline 
Amelia. She and her royal consort have always been gra- 
cious and good to me. I spent this time several days in the 
beautiful, w r oody " Sorgenfri." * The forest put forth its leaves 
while I was there ; every evening I read some chapters of the 
romance, which relate to the heavy but yet exhilarating war ; 2 
while reading I often saw the noble Queen deeply moved, and 
at the close of the book she expressed her thanks fervently. 

The Queen Dowager belongs to that class of noble, thought- 
ful women whose high rank one forgets when he is with them, 
1 Or Sans Souci. 2 The first war with Prussia, 1848. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 42 I 

and rejoices only in their noble humanity. One evening her 
majesty took an excursion through the wood and out on the 
""Strand road." I was in another carriage with two of the 
ladies of the court. As her majesty drove by a place on the 
road where a lot of children were playing, they recognized 
her, stood in a row, and cried, " Hurra ! " A little after 
came the carriage in which I sat. " There is Andersen," 
cried the little things ; " hurra ! " After we had returned home, 
the Queen said, smiling, " I believe all the children know us 
two. I heard their shouts of hurra." 

In the streets and from windows there often nodded to me 
a friendly child's face. I met one day a well-dressed lady 
walking with her children : the smallest boy broke away, ran 
over to me, and seized me by the hand. The mother called to 
him and said, as I afterward heard, " How dare you accost a 
strange gentleman ! " but the little fellow replied, " It was no 
stranger, it was Andersen ; all the boys know him." 

It was this spring ten years since I had been in England. 
In this time Dickens had often given me the pleasure of his 
letters, and now I was accepting his friendly invitation. For- 
tunate indeed was I ! The stay at Dickens's house must ever 
be a bright point in my life. I passed through Holland to 
France, and on the night of May n, took the boat from Calais 
to Dover. In my " Collected Writings " is a detailed account 
of my most delightful visit, where the man Dickens showed 
himself as unfailingly kind to me as Dickens the writer. 
Here follows a brief account of what has been given in full. 

In the early morning I reached London by rail, and im- 
mediately sought the northern railway that took me to 
Higham. Here was no carriage to be had, so I put myself 
under the guide of one of the railway porters, who took my 
bag, and we came to Gadshill, where Dickens had his pretty 
villa. He received me heartily, was looking a little older 
than when we last met ; but this look of age was owing a good 
deal to his beard, which he had let grow. His eyes were as 
bright as ever ; the same smile played about his mouth, the 
same pleasant voice sounded as kindly ; in all this there was 
more heartiness than ever. Dickens was now in the prime of 
life, in his forty-fifth year, — so youthful, full of life, eloquent 



422 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

and rich in humor, that gleamed through his hearty affection 
ateness. I do not know how I can say anything more signifi- 
cant than the words I wrote of him in one of my first letters 
from his house : " Take the best out of all Dickens's writings 
to get a picture of a man, and you have Charles Dickens." 
And so as he stood before me in the first hour I was there, 
he w r as and continued to be unchanged all the weeks I spent 
with him, — always full of life, happy, and sympathetic. 

Some days before my arrival a friend of Dickens, the drama- 
tist Douglas Jerrold, had died : in order to secure a few thou- 
sand pounds for his widow, Dickens with Bulwer, Thackeray, 
and the actor Macready, joined together. A drama and several 
recitations were on the programme. All this active labor and 
business fell to him, so that he had to go oftener than others 
to Londen, and stay there whole days. I went with him a few 
times, and stayed at his comfortable winter residence in Lon- 
don. I accompanied him andr his family to the Handel festi- 
val at the Crystal Palace ; we both saw for the first time the 
unapproachable tragic actress Ristori, as Camtna and as Lady 
Macbeth ; it was especially in the last role that she impressed 
us ; there was in all her representation a psychologic truth ; 
terrible, and still within the bounds of beauty : it is impos- 
sible that ever before or since a more true and impressive pic- 
ture could be given of this woman, so tremulous in soul and 
body. 

I saw the grand and fanciful manner in which Director 
Kean, son of the famous actor, brought Shakespeare's plays 
on the stage : the first representation of the storm, where the 
niise en scene was carried to an exaggerated length ; the bold 
poetry was turned into stone in the illustration ; the living 
word vanished, one does not get the spirituality belonging to 
it, and then forgets it for the gold dish that it is served in. 

A work of Shakespeare's artistically brought out, if only be- 
tween three folding screens, gives me a greater pleasure than 
here, where it had all the accessories of beauty. 

Of the representations that were given for the benefit of 
Jerrold's widow, that was a special treat in which Dickens 
with some of his family acted a new romantic drama, " The 
Frozen Deep," by Wilkie Collins, who himself took one of the 
principal characters, Dickens the other. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



423 



In Dickens's house dramatic representations were frequently 
given to good friends. Her majesty the Queen had long 
wished to see one of these, and now wished to honor it by her 
presence in the little theatre, " The Gallery of Illustration. " 
There the only spectators were the Queen, Prince Albert, the 
royal children, and the young Prince and Princess, also his 
Majesty the King of Belgium ■ besides this royal circle a select 
company of the actor's immediate friends was given admis- 
sion 1 from Dickens's house came only his wife, his mother-in- 
law, and myself. 

Dickens performed his part in the drama with striking 
truthfulness and great dramatic genius ; the little farce, " Two 
o'clock in the Morning," was given with great vivacity by 
Charles Dickens and the editor of " Punch," Mr. Mark 
Lemon, who, we hear, has since appeared in public with great 
success as Falstaff. After the performance I spent a good 
part of the night with all the actors and those aiding them, 
and bright hours they were, at the office of " Household 
Words • " a festival afterward repeated in the country at the 
house of Albert Smith, who ascended Mont Blanc. At Dick- 
ens's country seat I saw England's richest lady, Miss Burdett 
Coutts, of whom every one speaks as one of the noblest and 
most benevolent of women • it is not enough that she has 
built many churches, but she cares in the most rational and 
Christian manner for the poor, the sick, and the needy. She 
invited me to visit at her house in London ; I went there and 
saw an English house of the wealthiest sort, where yet the 
noble, womanly, excellent Miss Coutts was to me the most 
memorable part. 

With all the variety and splendor of the life in London I 
was always glad to go once more to my own home at Gads- 
h/.l : it was so delightful in the little room where Dickens 
and his wife and daughters gathered around the piano. They 
were happy hours, and still there often came there heavy, 
dark moments, not from within, but from without. Once, I 
remember, when I was unhappy over some criticism on my 
last book, " To be or not to be," which had put me in bad 
humor, as it ought not, still just when I was most uncomfort- 
able, I found that the very trial brought me a pleasure, by 
giving me an expression of Dickens's unfailing kindliness. 



424 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

He had heard from his family how out of sorts I was, and 
he let off whole fire-works of jokes .and witty words, and when 
that still did not make its way into my ill-humor's dark cor- 
ner, he spoke in earnest so eloquently and with such warm 
appreciation that I felt myself uplifted, strengthened, and 
filled with a desire and longing to deserve such words. I 
looked into my friend's beaming eyes, and felt that I ought to 
thank my severe critic for having obtained for me one of the 
most delightful moments in my life. 

The happy days at Dickens's house fled all too quickly. 
The last morning came, but I was yet, before I returned to 
Denmark, to see the apotheosis of Germany's poetic greatness. 
I was invited to the celebration in Weimar at the unveiling of 
Goethe's, Schiller's, and Wieland's statues. Early in the morn- 
ing Dickens had his little wagon brought out, took his place 
as coachman, and carried me to Maidstone, from where I was 
to take the train to Folkestone ; he drew for me a map of all 
the stations as a guide. Dickens was lively and hearty all the 
way, and I sat silent and in poor spirits at the near approach 
of our parting. At the station we embraced one another, and 
I looked in his eyes so full of feeling, looked perhaps for the 
last time on one whom I admired as an author and still more 
as a man. A grasp of the hand, and he was carried away, and 
I was rushing on with the train. " All's over, and that hap- 
pens to all stories." 

From Maxen near Dresden I sent this letter to Charles 
Dickens : — 

Dear best of Friends, — At last I can write, and the de- 
lay has been long enough, all too long ! but every day, almost 
every hour have you been in my thoughts. You and your 
home are become as a part of my soul's life, and how could 
it be otherwise ? For years I have loved and honored you 
through your writings, but now I know you yourself: No one 
of your friends can hold more firmly by you than I. The 
visit to England, the stay at your house, is a bright spot in my 
life, therefore did I stay so long and find it so hard to say 
farewell ; certainly when we drove together from Gadshill to 
Maidstone, I was so disconsolate it was next to impossible 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 425 

for me to carry on conversation ; I was almost ready to cry. 
Since then, when I think of the parting, I feel keenly how 
hard it must have been for you, some days after, to go with 
your son Walter on board his ship, and to know that you were 
not to see him again for seven years. I cannot express my- 
self, unless I write my letter in Danish, or I would say how 
happy I was with you, — how thankful I am. I saw every 
minute that you were my friend, and that you were glad to 
have me with you. You may believe I value what that signi- 
fies. Your wife, too, welcomed me, a stranger, so cordially : I 
can see that it could not have been so pleasant for your whole 
family to have for weeks about them one like me who spoke 
English so poorly, one who might be thought to have fallen 
down from the sky. Yet how little I was allowed to feel 
this. Give my thanks to all. ' Baby ' said to me the first 
day I came, ' I will put you out of the window,' but afterward 
he said that he would 'put' me 'in of the window,' and I 
count his last words as those of the whole family. 

" After having been in such a home, been so filled with happi- 
ness as I was, of course Paris could not be any stopping-place 
for me. I felt as if I were in a hot hive where no honey is to 
be found. The heat was oppressive \ I made haste to get 
away, but by short days' journeys. Five whole days I took to 
reach Frankfort \ not before the twenty-seventh did I reach 
Dresden, where the Serres entertained me. The day was the 
birthday of the master of the house, and it was spent at the 
house of one of my lady friends, the celebrated pianist and 
composer, Henselt, who lives most of the year at St. Peters- 
burg, but in summer upon her estate in Silesia. I came here 
to a merry festival. Yesterday for the first time we came here 
to Serre's place in Maxen. In the early morning I am writing 
this letter. It is just as if I myself were carrying it to you. I 
stand in your room at Gadshill ; see, as I did the first day I 
came, the roses blooming in the windows, the green fields that 
stretch out to Rochester ; I see the apple-like fragrance of the 
wild rose hedges out in the fields where the children played 
cricket. How much will happen before I again see it in 
reality, if indeed I ever do ! But, whatever time may disclose, 
my heart will ever faithfully and gratefully thank you, my 



426 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

great-hearted friend. Give me soon the pleasure of a letter ; 
tell me when you have read " To be or not to be," what you 
think of it. Forget kindly the cloudy side of me, which per- 
haps our life together showed you, and I will so live in good 
earnest with one whom I love as a friend and brother. 
" Faithfully yours, 

" Hans Christian Andersen." 

I soon received a very kind letter from the noble, good 
Dickens, with a particular greeting from every one, even from 
the monument and the shepherd's dog there. Afterward let- 
ters came less frequently, and last year none at all. " All's 
over, and that happens to all stories." 

In Weimar everything was in festive brilliancy : people 
streamed thither from all parts of Germany. I had at once 
the best, most cozy home with my friend the Court Marshal 
Beaulieu. Several of Germany's first dramatic artists were 
invited to take parts on the stage where Goethe and Schiller 
had labored and made their name. Scenes were given from 
Goethe's " Faust," second part, as well as a prelude suited to 
the occasion by Dingelsted, who was then intendant of the 
theatre. At the court were splendid receptions, princes and 
artists meeting together. 

The unveiling of Wieland's as well as of Goethe's and 
Schiller's statues, took place in delightful sunny weather. 
When the veil fell from the forms of these two masters, I saw 
one of those accidents which seem poetically intended : a 
white butterfly flew over Goethe's and Schiller's heads, as if 
not knowing on which of them it should alight, — a symbol 
of immortality ; after a short flight flying about, it rose in the 
clear sunlight and vanished. I told this little incident to the 
Grand Duke, and to Goethe's widow and Schiller's son. I 
asked this last, one day, if there was any truth in what many 
at Weimar said, that I bore a likeness to his father, and he 
answered that it was the case, but the likeness lay most in my 
form, bearing, and gait. " My father," said he, " had a coun- 
tenance quite different from yours, and red hair." I had not 
heard this before. 

Liszt composed the music for the celebration at the theatre : 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 427 

it brought out a storm of applause and he was called out. It 
did not move me, but the fault was mine. It was like waves 
of dissonances that rise into harmony, but not to carry me. 
I felt vexed with myself that I could not be as the others 
were, and unpleasantly embarrassed about Liszt, whom I hon- 
ored as an artist, and looked up to as one having a moving 
thought and human courage. The next day I was invited by 
him to dinner \ he received a company of his friends — all 
certainly admirers \ I felt that I could not honorably fall in 
with the common applause ■ it grieved me, and I formed a 
hasty resolve to travel the same day from Weimar \ but it is 
still a source of regret when I look back on it, and a grief to 
me that I was remiss through being out of tune myself, and 
that I did not give good-by to the prince of pianists. I have 
never since met him who in his art belongs to one of the 
great phenomena of the day. 

The journey home was by Hamburg. The cholera was 
there, and I went on to Kiel, where I heard that the disease 
was also in Denmark, and most severe in Korsor, where I 
was to go in the steamer. The weather was fair, the passage 
all too short, and we reached the cholera stricken city several 
hours before the departure of the train, and remained in the 
waiting-room together with a part of the towns-folk, who were 
very low spirited. In Copenhagen my doctor met me with 
the inquiry what I was doing here, where several cholera 
cases had shown themselves. I set off again into the country, 
first to Ingemann, and from there to the hospitable Basnos, 
but in the little place Skjelskor near by was also cholera : I 
did not know it but felt strangely low-spirited. My mind 
immediately recovered its balance, however, and then worked 
out the scheme for a new wonder story comedy, — " The Will- 
o'-the-Wisp." Ingemann thought well of the idea, but it only 
got on paper as a slight sketch, and several years afterward 
was given in quite another form and manner as the wonder 
story, — " The Will-o'-the- Wisps are in Town." 

The Director of the Royal Theatre urged me to write a 
prologue for the theatre's centenary ; the chief actor on the 
stage was to deliver it, but he had of late years found it very 
difficult to get anything by heart ; he would forget and make 



428 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

slips. I was afraid that this would be the case now, and it 
was the case. With his splendid resounding voice he declaimed 
the prologue, but made it so full of holes that for me it did 
not wave like a holiday banner, but like a ragged clout. The 
critics talked about the artist's fine delivery ; but that the 
prologue did not hang together well, it was of course the 
poet's fault and not the highly esteemed actor's. The day 
after I had the prologue printed that they might read it and 
understand it, but it was quite " the day after the fair." It 
has long since passed into the air, but Ingemann's letter to 
me remains as a poetic mark made over what was blotted out. 

"Soro, July 2, 1857. 

" A happy and blessed Christmas and New Year to you : no 
bitterness in the New Year, and no strain in the humor of the 
Copenhagenish or outer world's ephemeral cobwebs. Look 
at the milky way • think of the great rich story of life through 
all the higher and higher places of existence till the final last 
great day of the world, and let us thank our Lord for immortal- 
ity in that glory that He has prepared for us both here and here- 
after : meanwhile we blow aside all the little planet's cobwebs 
with a gay, merry puff of breath. Poesy is still, God be 
praised, a better pleasure-boat than all the boasted balloon 
ships in which virtuosos daily go up and tumble down, accord- 
ing as the fickle and often mephitic popular breath distends 
or collapses the balloon of a day. When you get fast hold of 
your ' will-o'-the-wisp,' let him also take and free you from 
the spider-demon that spins and twists about us the airy cob- 
webs of a Liliput world ! I provided for it in my ' Four 
Rubies,' but the idea did not get sufficient expression. When 
one becomes old, poetical ideas become too poor, and wanting 
flesh and blood ; but one still cannot be without these in this 
world. 

" Cordial greeting from my Lucia : some sin that has given 
her the toothache and swollen mouth, has tried to lessen our 
Christmas pleasure. There stands, besides, in our sitting-room 
a Christmas-tree with which the girl and the gardener's wife 
surprised us on Christmas Eve. From Madame Jerichau I 
have received Jerichau's medallion portrait of himself, and 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



429 



on the cover of the case she has drawn a pretty Christmas 
angel. There is still no little friendship and love in the world, 
and we were shamefully ungrateful when we were grumbling 
or low-spirited. That you, indeed, are not at bottom • far from 
it, but those prologue trifles had wrongfully put you out of tune. 
Make us happy soon with the news that you are flying freely 
about in the poetic sky ! Your ever devoted 

" Ingemann." 

1858. 

Of late years it has so often been said to me that I finally 
have come to believe it, that when I myself read my Wonder 
Stories they are set forth in the best light. The greater the 
gathering the better delivery I am assured of, and still I 
always go to such a gathering with a doubting, anxious mind. 
The first time I passed a sleepless night, and when the 
evening came I was as one in a fever. It was no single, 
important person as hearer who disturbed my mind ; no ! it 
is the many, the multitude that make a mist, as it were, about 
me and depress me. And yet I have always been met with 
gladness and loud praise. 

There was formed last year in Copenhagen a Mechanics* 
Association preceding the one now existing. Two of the men 
who showed a special interest in it by giving lectures and 
readings of an instructive kind, were Professor Dr. Hornemann 
and the Editor Bille. They applied to me to read before the 
association some of my Wonder Stories. 

It was an uncomfortable, exciting time in Copenhagen. 1 
There poured in far more people than there were places for 
in the great hall : the crowd outside pressed close up to the 
windows and clamored to have them opened : it was quite 
overwhelming to a nervous, timid soul, but as soon as I stood 
in the reading-desk my tremor disappeared. 

I began with the following words, which at that time seemed 
necessary : — 

II Among the instructive readings which are given at the 
Mechanics'" Association there is one that it has been thought 

1 This refers probably to the ravages of cholera that had recently 
appeared in the city. — Editor's Note. 



430 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

should not be omitted, and that is one from the poetic, the 
art that opens our eyes and our hearts to the beautiful, the 
true, and the good. 

" In England, in the royal navy, through all the rigging, small 
and great ropes, there runs a red thread, signifying that it 
belongs to the crown : through all men's lives there runs 
also a thread, invisible indeed, that shows we belong to God. 

" To find this thread in small and great, in our own life and 
in all about us, the poet's art helps us, and it comes in many 
shapes. Holberg let it come in his comedies, showing us the 
men of his time with their weaknesses, and their amusing qual- 
ities, and we can read much of these. 

" In the earliest times the poet's art dealt most with what 
are called Wonder Stories ; the Bible itself has inclosed truth 
and wisdom in what we call parables and allegories. Now we 
know all of us that the allegory is not to be taken literally by 
the words, but according to the signification that lies in them, 
by the invisible thread that runs through them. 

" We know that when we hear the echo from the wall, from 
the rock, or the heights, it is not the wall, the rock, and the 
heights that speak, but a resounding from ourselves ; and so 
we also should see in the parable, in the allegory, that we 
find ourselves, — find the meaning, the wisdom, and the hap- 
piness we can get out of them. 

" So the poet's art places itself by the side of Science, and 
opens our eyes for the beautiful, the true, and the good : and 
so we will now read here a few Wonder Stories." 

And I read and was followed with close attention ; a single 
heartfelt burst of applause was heard. I was glad and satis- 
fied to have read. Afterward I gave still a few more readings, 
and other authors followed my example. 

In i860 was founded with great eclat the Mechanics' As- 
sociation that now exists, where almost every winter I have 
read and met hearty recognition • several of our Danish poets 
and writers, as well as the most celebrated actors, have read 
their poems and dramatic works. 

At one of the yearly celebrations of the anniversary of the 
founding of the Association, to which I was invited, an en- 
thusiastic toast was drunk to that ornament of the Danish 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 43 1 

stage, since dead, Michael Wiehe ; he was named as the first 
who had broken the ice, the first who had brought the gift of 
poesy to the Mechanics' Association, and when he had led 
the way, the rest all followed. 

In the Mechanics' Association of i860, Mr. Wiehe certainly- 
had been the first who read, I believe, a poem of Oehlen- 
schlager ; but two years before, when for the first time the 
working classes were formed into an association, in 1858, I 
was the one who broke the ice, and it is an honor I will not 
let slip me ! 

In the Students' Union I had as a young student read my 
first Wonder Story. The years have long since gone by. Now, 
in 1858, I read again, and was so heartily received, so kindly 
greeted, that certainly if my fright at reading before a great 
company were not the chief thing, yet here and at the Associ- 
ation I felt and understood that I read before young, warm 
hearts — men of nature, who made these evenings I have 
spoken of as beautiful moments of festivity. 

In the last year there was published at Christmas, or, little 

later, in the spring, a little volume of Wonder Stories, on the 

yellow cover of which was printed a picture of the storks as 

they came flying with the Spring on their backs ; this last 

volume contained for its longest story, "The Marsh King's 

Daughter." Ingemann wrote of it : — 
v 

" Soro, April 10, 1858. 
" Dear Friend, — You are a lucky man ! When you scrape 
up stones in a brook, you find pearls right away, and now you 
have found a precious stone in the marsh. It is a benevolent 
fancy that so holds up roses to our noses where it smells worst 
in the world, and shows us royal splendor in the marsh ; that 
she is beautiful I have already heard from others. It shall 
be my pleasure to see her after the great washing, and the six 
rinsings you have given her. I have so much affection for 
her elder brothers and sisters, and so much confidence in her 
washer's taste, and fine aesthetic light, that neither with her 
nor half the kingdom she surely brings with her, does there 
stick a single spatter from her father's whole state. In our 



432 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

' whole state ' 1 there is certainly some mud. If now your 
princess could only show us what good and beautiful thing 
can come out of such a kingdom. Happiness and blessing 
be on the new year of your life which you have begun. It is 
not logical, but I set a high price on the fact, that one is born 
as the condition on which all life depends, and it is the be- 
ginning that makes it worth while to live. Still I don't care 
much for birthdays. 

" The second of April we remembered notwithstanding, with 
regard to the peaceful second of April's hero on the stork's 
back, which indeed is the vignette on your ' Wonder Stories 
and Tales.' The cross of the e Dannebrogsmand ' 2 had 
nearly come that day. We should have found that acknowl- 
edgment good and proper. Hearty greetings from us both. 

" That the theatre had not killed Hauch was an agreeable 
piece of news to me. That position would kill me, and you, 
too, perhaps, although you indeed, when that shall be, can 
have practice as packer. I had that practice too, when I was 
Director, but it took all my strength and a whole year, and I 
have not yet got over it. Now I wish you a happy private life, 
and poet life, with fresh flying Psyche-wings that either fly 
over flowers, or run in their chariot through the marsh king- 
dom, again to fly over the world in sunshine and summer air. 
" Your devoted friend, " Ingemann." 

In June I was already off on my travels, on a visit to the 
Serres and with some friends in Bremen. The pleasure of 
this travelling-life was soon ended. I. happened to hear 
home news that made me tremble, filled me with sorrow, 
and which always comes back to me as painful and fearful, 
when friends from America invite me to their home, the other 
side of the world's sea. I have, in the first pages of " The 
Story of my Life," spoken of Admiral Wulff's house in Copen- 
hagen/his wife and children, of the oldest daughter, Henriette, 
who always in dark days and bright took so constant an in- 

1 There was a party in Denmark then whose political watch-word was, 
" Whole State " (Heel-stat), referring to the union of Sleswick-Holstein 
and Denmark. — Editor's note. 

2 An order of knighthood. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 433 

terest in all that concerned me. After her parents died she 
lived with her youngest brother, Christian Wulff, lieutenant in 
the navy. Never has any one seen a more affectionate and 
devoted brother. For her it was a necessity, one may say a 
matter of health, to travel, and she loved the sea passionately ; 
on several great journeys she accompanied her brother, visited 
Italy with him, and went with him to the West Indies and 
America ; on the, for her, last great voyage, they both were 
aboard a vessel where there was infection of yellow fever. 
The brother was seized, and she, the weak girl, was his nurse ; 
sat by the fever bed, wiped with her handkerchief his hot, 
clammy forehead, and wiped her own eyes with the same ; but 
she became strong who was weak before the sickness, while 
her brother sank under it and was buried. 

Overwhelmed with grief she found a dear home at Eagle- 
wood near New York, with the generous Marcus Spring and 
his excellent wife Rebecca, whose acquaintance had been 
made by the authoress Fredrika Bremer. 

A year after Henriette Wulff came back again to Denmark ; 
we saw one another nearly every day. The sense of her broth- 
er's loss was in many respects excessive. Her thoughts flew 
often to the land where her brother's dust rested : she longed 
to go thither once more, and was uneasy in the summer until 
the journey. In the month of September she went by the 
Hamburg steamer Aitstria ; from England her last letter came 
to her sister : she said that there were a great many on board, 
but no one toward whom she felt herself drawn, yet when they 
came to England she felt such a great repugnance to the jour- 
ney that she was almost resolved to go back, but shamed her- 
self out of her weakness and remained. 

Not long after we read the news that the steamer Austria 
was burned on the Atlantic. I was overwhelmed ; her sister 
and elder brother, her relations and friends were in an agony 
of doubt. Soon there came descriptions of the fearful scenes 
in the sudden disaster from those who only were saved : but 
who were those ? Was she, with her little feeble form, among 
them ? No certain intelligence came that she was at the bottom 
of the ocean. If grief could find place in words, then surely 
it could in what I wrote in the first moment of sorrow : — 
28 



434 THE ST0RY 0F MY LIFE. 

HENRIETTE WULFF : 

DIED ON THE STEAMER AUSTRIA, SEPTEMBER 13, 1 858. 

In the burning ship, on the rolling wave, 

In horrors we cannot bear to hear, 
Thou hast suffered and died and found thy grave, 

But the cry of thy death never comes to our ear. 

Thou bold and hardy soul that dwelt apart 

In feeble body ; little seemed the souls anigh, 
And never chill took hold of thy warm heart — 

Here few there were that knew thee : many more on high. 

Thou wert my sister, compassionate and strong, 
Uplifting still my soul when trampled in the dust ; 

Thou knewest me — to thee it doth belong 
That often I sank not, when sink I felt I must. 

False things and empty, jinglings of small bells 

Are guarded by the noisy crowd that float adown the stream ; 

Thy course thou didst not change, — and so the sea-foam went, 
And so earth's life is spent, quick ended as a dream. 

Farewell, my friend from childhood's days ! 

To me thou hast been more than I was worth ; 
Now is thy conflict o'er, thou seest thy brother's face, 

With whom was ever joined all that thou sought on earth. 

Thy tomb was the sea, the wild rolling sea ; 

Our hearts bear the chiseled words of thy name ; 
Thy soul is in heaven, and our Lord gives to thee 

A manifold bliss for the suffering that came. 

In the burning ship, on the rolling wave, 

In horrors we cannot bear to hear, 
Thou hast suffered, hast died, and found thy grave, 

But the cry of thy death never comes to our ear. 

My thoughts, night and day, were filled with this matter. I 
could think of nothing else, and many a night in the time of our 
uncertainty I prayed God in my heart, if it be possible that 
there is connection between the world of spirits and the world 
of men, then grant me a glimpse, some least sign from it, if 
only a dream of her ; but notwithstanding my waking thoughts 
were wholly occupied with the friend of my youth, when sleep 
with dreaming came, never did anything manifest itself or stir 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



435 



my fancy that could seem to be such a communion. The con- 
stant thinking of this event so affected me that one day going 
out into the street the houses suddenly appeared to me as mon- 
ster waves that rolled against one another \ I saw the mo- 
tion, but at the same moment I was to that degree startled at 
myself, that with all the force of my will I burst this fixed 
thought upon one and the same thing ; I felt that it belonged 
to insanity. 

There came a sudden peace in my mind, a trust in God, and 
sorrow spent itself in its lamentation. Ingemann wrote to 
me : — 

" The greater has been that soul in the small weak body, the 
easier flight it had from the burning to the quenching element, 
and the freer flight to that great spirit world wherein we first 
rightly draw breath. But I need not paint for the poet who 
wrote ' The Dying Child ' and ' To be and not to be/ the light 
side itself in the picture of the world's ruin where in a moment 
we are overwhelmed as by the most terrible thing. That you 
have yourself surely already done, and have at one and the 
same time given expression to the pain and the love in a fare- 
well song to the released spirit ; so the affliction will have lost 
its sting when this little letter reaches you. Both my Lucie and 
I have felt sincerely and shared your grief by the thought and 
the picture of that fearful event ; but we know, God be praised, 
where and how you will seek and find, not trust only, but se- 
rene joy in what the highest love only still grants us. God 
bless you and give you strength, not only to find faith for your- 
self but to impart it to her sister." 

Miss Wulff s eldest brother, Peter Wulff, a captain in the 
navy, wrote to one of the officers of the ship who was saved, 
and all that he learned was that Tette Wulff was seen at the 
breakfast-table ; after that, she used always, as was known, to 
go to her state-room and come from it again only to the din- 
ner-table. It was between these hours that the disaster oc- 
curred : the ship was being fumigated by burning tar. The tar 
barrel upset, and the burning stuff gave out smoke and flame 
which soon enveloped the whole ship. It was presumed that 
she was suffocated by the smoke and died in her state-room, 
which is now her tomb at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. 



436 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

1859. 

Hartmann's melodious " Little Christine," which had been 
caught up in the people's singing, and for which I had written 
the text, was after a long, undeserved rest again brought on the 
stage and received a great deal of attention : my text even was 
praised ; the critics in " The Father-land " called it a true poem, 
an inspiration : " 'une vere de l'ideal au milieu des tristes real- 
ites de la vie.' Beautiful lovely pictures glided past, speak- 
ing so naturally and innocently to one, and the working out of 
the language is so fanciful and plastic, that one cannot read 
the poem without being moved. There is a world written of in 
these pages, such as perhaps has never been and perhaps never 
will be ; but that matters not, since it has beauty in itself and 
remains in our heart as something we long for." 

So kind an expression was granted to my poem, and Hart- 
mann's uncommonly beautiful music as well was praised with 
greatest appreciation. 

Later in the spring was published a new collection of 
wonder stories and tales. Among these were " The Wind 
tells the Story of Waldemar Daae and his Daughters." This 
was dedicated to my friend the composer Hartmann. 

The trees were putting out their leaves. The weather was 
warm and lovely ; King Frederick VII. was staying in the old 
splendid Frederick Castle, in the beautiful woody country, and 
sent for me to hear me read the new production. I was wel- 
comed with the open hearty candor which the King always 
showed, and spent two agreeable days in Christian IV. 's proud 
residence, which has had life given it in Hauch's poem, 
" Frederick Castle." 

I saw all the splendor and the old glory, walked in these 
halls, sat at the King's table, which on the beautiful sunny day 
was spread below in the garden. When the tables were removed 
a sail was taken on .the lake round about the castle, and out 
here in the open air the King wanted me to read what the 
wind told of Waldemar Daae and his daughters. 

His majesty with his consort, the Countess Danner, took 
seats in the King's boat, where I too had a place : a few other 
boats with other guests followed. We glided over the blue 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



437 



water wherein the fiery sky at sunset was mirrored. And I 
read the story of how riches and happiness fled away, read 
the whistling of the wind " hu-u-ud away with you ! " There 
was a moment's silence as I ended the reading \ I myself felt 
strangely mournful, and one will understand that the recollec- 
tion of these moments in the royal boat where the sea, the 
air, and the castle were beaming with delight, came vividly 
to my thought when in the year following the sad tidings 
came that Frederick Castle was in names. — The summer 
called me to Jutland, the most picturesque part of Denmark. 
The recollection is preserved in " A Story from the Sand 
Hills," and a description of Skagen. 

State Councilor Tang, proprietor of the old North Wosborg, 
where once the Knight Bugge's home stood, near Nyssum 
Fjord, had invited me to his house : a picture of the place, 
the building, and the people there is preserved in a letter to 
Ingemann : — 

" On Monday I journeyed from Silkeborg westward. I 
thought I was going to a barren, almost uninhabited country, 
and I find everywhere cultivated fields, and a pretty garden 
up at the minister's house, where elder-trees and roses bloom ; 
there are many inhabitants here, and a noble people too. 
North Wosborg is a very old place, with deep moats and high 
ramparts close up to the very windows ; the sheltering thicket 
round about the garden has been clipped by the western 
storms as if it had been under the gardener's shears. The 
chapel of the place is turned into a guest chamber. Here I 
sleep. A white lady shows herself in the place, but she has 
not yet visited me : she knows well that I like jokes but not 
ghosts. On Wednesday, the 6th July, we celebrated here on 
the place the battle of Fredericia ; 1, six peasants who had been 
engaged in it were invited ; there was sport, drinking, and 
speech-making, the Dannebrog waved, and when I was asked 
to read a Wonder Story, I read ' Holger the Dane.' State 
Councilor Tang has shown great kindness to the peasantry, 
and we have visited among them. What a rich and pretty 
place it is here ! The kitchens look as if they were baby 
1 In 1848, in the first war with Prussia. 



43^ THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

houses, and the whole ceiling was hidden in a mosaic of hams 
and sausages. The good people overwhelmed me with cakes, 
preserves, and drinks. They presented me with schnapps and 
several kinds of wine, Russian tea, and liquors, and when of 
course I could only sip of all the abundance they came with 
chocolate. ' That surely I could drink ! ' said they, and 
then they brought their old beer after that — they meant well. 
"Yesterday we drove to Huusby sand hills near the Western 
Sea, three miles from here. We were several carriage loads, 
all with the Dannebrog flag • we planted this on the sand hills ; 
a tent was pitched; the sea rolled, and we sang patriotic 
songs. About two gunshots from the sand hills lies Huusby 
parsonage, with large pleasant rooms, a good library, and your 
portrait. In the garden large trees are growing, and there 
is a hedge of roses. But how sharply the wind blew as we 
drove home in the evening ; it cracked my lips and rasped 
my face. Yesterday there was a large company at North 
Wosborg on my account ; there were more than a hundred 
present, most from the peasantry : we drank tea in the garden, 
and afterward sat far into the night around the table in the 
great hall, singing and talking. It is a sturdy people, this 
peasantry, with their culture and their eagerness for knowledge 
and wisdom. They had a great desire here at the westward 
to have a railway : it will soon come. The country itself was 
once a grain and woodland country I am sure. But then the 
romantic heather grown fields will be gone with their loneli- 
ness, and their will-o'-the-wisp, and all the glory of the old 
times. Many legends have I heard over here ; several refer 
to North Wosborg. There in the cellar it is that the gipsy 
woman, Long Marge the sat. She had torn the foetus from the 
wombs of five pregnant women to eat the warm heart of the 
child, and thought that only when she had eaten the seventh 
would she make herself invisible. To-day the wind howls as if it 
were autumn, and the sea listens. Give my warm greetings to 
your wife. Your ever devoted, 

" H. C. Andersen. 
"North Wosborg, July n, 1859." 

It was a charming stay here, and not so very short either. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



439 



At my departure the whole family accompanied me to Lemvig. 
Here, near the Liim Fjord, is Hamlet's grave, not Elsinor, 
where Shakespeare has placed his great dramatic poem. " Am- 
let's grave," says the West Jutlander. A solitary shepherd sits 
here frequently on the height, and blows his monotonous 
melody on the little flute he has fashioned out of an elder 
bough or a sheep's bone. 

We reached Lemvig and put up at the inn : I soon saw 
the Dannebrog thrust out from the roof, and a little after at the 
opposite neighbor's appeared a Dannebrog's flag. 

" Is there a celebration going on ? " I asked. 

" It is in honor of you," said State Councilor Tang. We 
went together to see the town : kind eyes welcomed me, and 
from several houses the flags waved. I could not really 
believe that this was on my account, but when the next day 
in the early morning hour I came to the steamboat, I was 
made to understand that I had friends in Lemvig, from great 
people to small. 

In the crowd of people there was a little boy well wrapped 
up. " Poor little fellow ! " said I, " up so early to go by the 
steamboat ! " 

u That shall he not," answered the mother ; " he has had no 
rest or sleep, for I promised him he should come here in the 
morning to see Andersen set off: he knows all his Wonder 
Stories." 

I kissed the little boy, and said : " Go home and to bed, 
my little friend ; good-by, good-by ! " I was as pleased as a 
child. I was warmed thereby and not frozen, like the little 
fellow in the cold, fresh, western morning on this coast. The 
steamer glided through Ottesund, where Germany's kings 
once planted its colors and willed that what was Danish 
should die. We came to Thisted, the witch-possessed town 
that Holberg tells us of. 

We were by the landing-jetty ; I sat in the cabin ; the 
steam was sissing and whistling, when one came and called 
me up on the deck. Friends of my poetry stood at the jetty 
to give me a ringing hurra ! Later in the day I came to Aal- 
borg : bright eyes welcomed me and I felt friendly grasps 
of the hand. My friend from student days, Kammerherre 



440 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Dahlstrom, who married Orsted's lovely daughter Sophie, 
took me to his home, the old Aalborg house. 

Anders Sando Orsted, brother to the discoverer of electro- 
magnetism, was here on a visit. He is a jurist of first rank, 
and an influential statesman. As we sat after dinner in the 
twilight, the servants announced that there were a great many 
people pouring into the place, and soon a deputation came 
into the room. The Aalborg Singing Club wished to give me 
a greeting song. I felt embarrassed that they should honor 
me and not Orsted. I could not stand by the open windows 
where he a few years since had stood and received a similar 
greeting. I went out into the place to the singers ; the song 
began, and I pressed warmly the hands of as many as I could, 
with gladness and thankfulness. It was the first serenade at 
home. Swedish students had before, on my first visit in 
Lund, 1840, given me such a one. 

From Aalborg I kept on my journey by Skagen, Denmark's 
northernmost point, where the North Sea and East Sea meet. 
The old Borglum monastery, where once the might of the 
Church gave more council than the King himself in his own 
kingdom, is now a manor-house. The proprietaire Rotboll is 
its owner. I had a friendly invitation from him to stay a 
while to see the country there, and perhaps one of the West- 
ern Sea's storms. I have in my historical narrative, " The 
Bishop of Borglum and his Kinsman," given a picture of the 
place, as follows : — 

" We are now in Jutland, near the Wild Marsh ; we can hear 
the roar of the Atlantic Ocean, rolling hard by ; in front of us 
rises a great sand hill, and we are driving toward it, slowly 
driving through the deep sand. An old, large, rambling build- 
ing crowns this sand hill : it is Borglum Monastery ; the larg- 
est wing is the church. It is late evening by the time we 
have ascended the hill, but the air is clear, the nights are 
bright, and we can still enjoy a prospect far and wide, over 
meadow and moor as far as Aalborg Fjord, over field and 
heath, till they are bounded by the dark-blue ocean. 

" We are on the hill, we drive on through barn and shed, 
then turn round and pass through the gates, on toward the 
old castle-court, where lime-trees stand in a row along the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 44 1 

walls ; here they get shelter from wind and weather, they 
thrive, and their leafy branches almost hide the windows. 

" We ascend the stone winding-staircase, we tread the long 
corridors, under a ceiling of wood-work ; the wind whistles 
round us with such strange, wild notes, both within and with- 
out the building, and we begin to tell each other tales of the 
past — such tales as one remembers when feeling half-fright- 
ened. The forms of murdered men seem to our fancy to 
glide silently past us ; the wild wind, as it rushes through the 
church, still seems to sing mass for their souls ; the mind is 
thrown back into the days of old, pictures them, lives in them." 

Then follows the narrative, which in its historic truth puts 
in its right light our age over that sung by poets, the hap- 
pily vanished Middle Ages. 

" Borglum is haunted ! " had been said to me at Aalborg. 
" In a certain room there is an apparition of dead monks." 
One is assured that the Bishop of the Diocese himself had 
seen them. I do not venture to deny the possibility of inter- 
course between the world of spirit and of sense, but I do not 
believe in it with certainty. Our existence, the world in and 
about us, are all full of wonder, but we are so used to it that 
we speak of it as " natural ; " all is kept and controlled by the 
great laws of nature, the laws of reason, laws that lie in God's 
might, wisdom, and goodness, and I do not believe in any 
departure from them. 

After the first night I had slept at Borglum monastery, I 
could not forbear asking the master of the house and his 
wife at the breakfast-table, in what apartment the Bishop had 
slept, and been visited by the spirits. I was asked if I had 
taken the alarm at anything in my chamber, and if the dead 
monks had shown themselves to me. The first thing I did 
now was to go and make thorough search from floor to 
ceiling, — yes, I went out into the place, examined care- 
fully all the surroundings, climbed up to the windows to dis- 
cover if the place was adapted to the getting up of ghost 
scenes. I did not know but somebody here, as in another 
country-house happened in my early youth, might entertain 
himself with contriving some ghostly night scenes. But I 
discovered nothing, and slept at night, and several nights 
afterward, in peace and safety. 



442 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

One evening I went to bed earlier than usual and awoke 
at midnight with a strange cold shiver running through me : 
I felt disagreeably, and thought of the ghosts they had talked 
about, but said to myself how foolish such fright was, and 
for what reason should white monks show themselves to me. 
Had I not, when I was still living in ignorance of the death 
of Henriette WulfY, besought God earnestly that he would 
grant me, if a glimpse only were possible, to receive some sign 
of sight or hearing from the other world that she was among 
the departed ; but nothing showed itself ; I perceived nothing. 

These thoughts raised me from my disturbed state, but at 
the same moment I saw in the farthest and darkest part of 
the room a misty shape like a man. I looked and looked, 
and it went through me like ice \ it was not to be endured. I 
was divided between fright and a necessity to know and under- 
stand it all : I sprang out of bed, rushed at the misty shape, 
and saw now when near by that it was the polished, varnished 
door, where three projecting parts receiving light from a mir- 
ror that through the window got light from the bright summer 
night, formed something like a man's shape. That was the 
ghost I saw at Borglum. 

Since that I have come to have a share in a couple of 
ghost stories, and this will be the best place to record them. 

It was a year afterward I was in another old country-house. 
I was going in broad daylight through one of the great halls, 
and suddenly I heard a loud ringing as of a dinner-bell ; the 
sound came from the opposite wing of the house where I 
knew the apartments were not occupied. I asked the mistress 
of the house what bell it was that I heard. She looked 
earnestly at me. 

" You have heard it too ? " said she, " and heard it now in 
broad day ; " and she told me that was often heard, especially 
late in the evening when they were going to sleep ; yes, that 
the sound then was so loud that it could be heard by folks down 
in the cellar. 

" Let us then look into it," said I. We went through the 
hall where I had heard the mysterious bell and met the mas- 
ter of the house and the clergyman of the place. I told about 
the sounding of the bell and protested as I went up to the 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 443 

window that " it was no ghost \ " and while the words were 
spoken, the bell rang again still louder. At that I felt a 
shiver down my back, and said not quite so loud, " I don't 
deny it, but I don't believe in it." 

Before we left the hall the bell rang once again, but at the 
same moment my eye fell accidentally on the great chandelier 
under the ceiling. I saw that the many small glass pendants 
were in motion : I seized a stool, stood upon it with my head 
against the chandelier. 

" Go quickly and heavily over the floor here," I bade them ; 
they did so, and now we heard all the loud bell sounds that 
had been ringing as if far away, and so the ghost was found 
out. An old clergyman's widow who heard about it, said after- 
ward to me : — 

" That bell was so interesting. How could you, who are a 
poet, bear to destroy it, and for nothing at all ? " 

Still another ghost story — the last. I was at Copenhagen. 
I woke up in the middle of the night and saw before me at 
the foot of the bed placed on the stove a chalk-white bust 
which I had not before noticed. " Surely it is a present," 
thought I. " Who could have given it ? " I rose up in bed, 
and stared at the white shape, which at the same moment van- 
ished. I shuddered, but got up, lighted the candle and saw 
by the clock that the hour was just one. At the same mo- 
ment I heard the watchman call out the hour. 

I wrote out the little incident and lay down again, but I 
could not get any rest, when it entered my head : " It must 
be the light of the moon that shines through the window upon 
the white wall." I again got up and looked out ; the air was 
clear, the new moon must also have been long gone, all the 
street lamps were extinguished, nor could the light from one 
of them possibly have been seen. 

The next morning I made search in the room and looked 
out over the street ; over at the opposite neighbor's was a lamp. 
The light from it could, with the half-raised curtain and a sail 
in a vessel on the canal, form on the wall the shape of a human 
head. I went therefore when it was evening into the street 
and asked the watchman at what time he put out the lamp. 

" At one o'clock," said he ; "just before I call the hour." It ' 



444 THE ST0RY 0F MY LIFE. 

was the reflection on the wall that I had seen and stared at \ 
the watchman had at the same moment put out the light and 
the ghost. 

But to return to Borglum monastery, where more than one 
related nocturnal sights which I had not the fortune to see. 
As soon as I was on my way home going through Aalborg, I 
had to tell of the ghost and talk with the reverend gentleman 
who had seen the white monkish shapes. I undertook to dis- 
cover whether the sight of these did not lie in some fault of 
the eyes, and he answered seriously : " It may be that there is 
something amiss in yours that you cannot see such ! " 

Ten or twelve days w T ere spent at Borglum, and during these 
I visited the little fishing town Lokken where there are quick- 
sands in the streets quite up to several houses, but that I 
could make out to see still more effectively, they said, when 1 
got to Skagen. The road thence led over Hjorring • I 
reached it tired enough at evening, and was ready to go 
straight to bed ; but the landlord in the inn told me in con- 
fidence that I was to receive a visit in the evening, that sev- 
eral ladies and gentlemen were coming to call upon me, and 
the garden was to be illuminated. 

Later in the evening there came indeed a deputation ; I was 
taken out into the garden, where I was received with a pretty 
song. Provost Djorup gave me a cordial address of welcome ; 
it was an evening full of enjoyment, the stars twinkled clearly, 
and I felt myself happy indeed. 

In Fladstrand, also, where the railroad to Skagen begins, I 
found a cozy home with friends who sought to make my stay 
and journey as agreeable as possible. They looked out to 
get for me a steady driver who could drive me along the sea 
beach, where the surf was rolling. He was a well-to-do, ex- 
cellent countryman, who knew well where there was safe 
ground and where the treacherous quicksands were. 

They had shown him before my portrait, and said, " That is 
a great poet ! " and the countryman laughed a little and said, 
" No, it is a great lion." He would not enter into conversa- 
tion at all with me on the way, nor tell me anything, but he 
laughed judiciously at what I said to him. He drove me well, 
however ; he was hospitable too, and I did not get leave to go 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



445 



from his place until I had been well treated with roast chickens, 
pancakes, wine, and mead. 

We drove over pasture-land, heath, and moor-land ; we drove 
on the beach over the hard, burning sand. We came soon to 
the sand hills that lay like great snow drifts in winter-time. 
The shore was nearly covered with quivering, reddish-brown 
medusae, large shells, and round, smooth pebbles. Wreck 
after wreck lay there \ we drove right through what was once 
a great three-master. Screaming sea-fowl circled above us. 
The tower of St. Laurentius' Church, half hidden in the flying 
sand, was seen, and there was the town of Skagen. It is 
formed of three villages, and the oldest part lies half a mile 
from the other two. It was to this that we drove. 

The streets here are shifting • they are marked also by a 
cable stretched from pole to pole, just as the quicksands may 
determine. Here is a house half buried by a pile of sand, 
there another \ here a dark, tarred, wooden house with straw 
thatch, there a few houses with red roofs ; in a little potato 
patch I saw a pig tied to a ship's figure-head : Hope leaning 
on an anchor. Here peeps from the gable of the house a 
colossal figure, — Walter Scott, a figure-head from some 
stranded vessel. 

The desert here has its oasis also, a verdant plantation with 
beech, willow, poplar, fir, and pine. The sod covers the sand 
in the garden that otherwise would quickly get the mastery. I 
visited Skagen's extreme point, that is so small that one man 
can stand on it and have the waves from the North Sea wash 
over one foot and the waves from the Kattegat over the other. 
Countless sea-birds filled the air with their cry,- and from the 
immense gulf of the sea the rolling and breaking of the ground 
swell gave out a deep roar. The view out over the level sea 
as it meets the sky makes one dizzy ) one unconsciously looks 
to see out here on the point if there is still solid ground be- 
hind him and that he is not out on the expanse of the sea, a 
worm only for these cloudy swarms of screaming fowl. Stumps 
of wrecks and of ships stand like mammoth's knuckles down 
in the clear transparent water that is turned, when a storm 
comes up, into foaming waterfalls that leap over the ledges on 
the coast against the drifting sand heaps. 



446 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

From Skagen I was driven over the deep sand of the dunes 
to old Skagen, that for years has always been moving back 
into the country ; the heavy waves roll where the last old 
Skagen lay. We came to an old church buried under the 
sand heaps, which Dutch and Scottish sea-captains had caused 
to be built and consecrated to St. Laurentius. In the course 
of years the sand heaped, itself against the church-yard 
walls, and soon lay over them and over the graves and tomb- 
stones, quite up to the church's walls and windows. Still the 
parish came and held their service here, but soon one could 
not shovel it away. One Sunday when the neighbors and the 
priest came, an immense sand heap lay before the church 
door, then the priest read a short prayer and said, "Our 
Lord has now closed this his house, we must build Him a new 
one elsewhere. " 

The 5th of June, 1795, the church was by royal order closed, 
the tower alone to be preserved as a land-mark for sailors, and 
it still remains. The old inhabitants of Skagen would not 
give up the old church-yard : they all wanted to lie there by 
those who had gone before ; with great difficulty this was done 
until the year 1810, when the sand had so entirely covered the 
church-yard that a new one had to be laid out. I pushed my 
way through to the sand-buried old church, and give here the 
impression which is recorded in my sketch of Skagen : — 

" One stands here by the buried church with a like feeling 
to that he has on the ashy heights over Pompeii. The leaden 
roof is broken off, the white, mealy sand, heated in the glaring 
sun, lies heaped upon the arches of the church ; all is hidden 
in the darkness of the grave, guarded and forgotten by men 
until some time when the western storms shall blow away the 
heavy sand heaps, and the sun's rays again shine in through the 
open arched window on the pictures in the choir, the long rows 
of portraits of Skagen's councilors and burgomasters, with their 
names and official seals. Perhaps a people coming from afar 
off enters this Pompeii of Skagen, and again gazes in wonder 
at the old curiously carved altar table with its Bible pictures. 
The warm sunshine again beams upon Mary and her Babe 
that holds in its hand the gilded globe. Now the dead sand 
waves lie here over the church, a desert of white thorn with 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



447 



their yellow berries growing in the sand \ wild roses too bloom 
here, and the wild brier. One gets to thinking of the fairy 
tale about the sleeping beauty in the wood, where the castle 
is overgrown by an impenetrable thicket. The mighty church- 
tower still rises for two thirds of its height above the sand 
hills ; the ravens build in it, a swarm of them hovering about ; 
their cry, and the crackling branches of the white thorn that 
we trod on to get forward, were the only sounds I heard in this 
sandy wilderness.'' 

After a couple of days' stay here in the grand wild nature 
that with its screaming flock of birds suggested scenery for 
Aristophanes' " Birds," I turned again southward on my way 
home. One of my Jutland friends and the minister's sister-in- 
law accompanied me. The waves darting up were too heavy 
to permit us to drive on the shingle ; we were obliged to 
drive through the deep sand in the dunes, and go forward very 
slowly. I talked and told about foreign lands I had seen, 
told of Italy and Greece, of Sweden and Switzerland. The old 
post-boy listened, and said with a kind of astonishment : " But 
how can such an old man as you be content to roll round so ? " 
I answered with quite as much surprise. — 

" Do you think me so old ? " 

"You are indeed an old man," said he. 

" How old do you think ? " I asked. 

"Well on to eighty." 

" Eighty ! " exclaimed I. " Travelling has certainly aged 
me ; do I look sickly ? " 

" Yes, you do look dreadfully lean," said he. To be fleshy 
was his idea of good condition. 

I spoke of the new beautiful light-house at Skagen. 

" The king ought to see it ; " and I added, — 

" I shall tell the king about it when I talk with him." At 
that the old fellow smiled to my fellow-passengers. 

" When he talks with the king ! " 

" Yes, I have talked with the king " I answered, " and I 
have eaten with the king." Then the old fellow laid his hand 
on his forehead, shook his head, and smiled knowingly. 

" He has eaten with the king ! " He thought I was a little 
cracked. 



448 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

From Frederickshavn, whose environs are a most charming 
part of Denmark, with the heath, beech forests, cornfields, and 
open shore, I came often to Aalborg, lived again at Aalborg 
House, where I was honored with welcomes and singing ; it was 
like a dream, a lovely dream, which makes me happy, and for 
which I gave thanks to our Lord. Everywhere kind eyes, warm 
hearts, beautiful sunny weather in this varying Jutland country. 
On the way through Randers and Viborg, as we were driving, 
the song " Jutland " sprang from my heart, which our worthy 
composer Heise, set to music that is sung all over Denmark : 

Jutland twixt two bounding seas, 

Like a runic stone is laid ; 
The mighty Giant's Grave is there, 

Hid in the thick of woody glade. 
And on the heath between the tides, 
The mighty Tempest monarch bides. 

Jutland ! dear to Danish heart ! 

With thy wooded lonely heights, 
Thy wild-wind West with sand heaped hills 

That tower above in mountain flights. 
The Eastern Sea and North Sea stand 
And clasp their hands o'er Skagen's strand. 

At Asmild-Closter, near Viborg, I was kindly entertained by 
friends, and enjoyed more merry days ; but the best, the most 
unlooked-for pleasure was on the morning of the day I left. 
I had gone about a mile on the road from Viborg when I saw 
by the way a young lady whom I had met at Asmild-Closter, 
and then another, and now my coachman reined in his horse, 
and I saw six young, pretty, child-like maids, who stood waiting 
for me with bunches of flowers. They had gone a whole 
Danish mile in the early morning to say the farewell to me 
which they would not say in the busy town. I was wholly 
taken by surprise and deeply moved, and did not show my 
thankfulness as I ought : in my surprise I only said: — 

" My dear children, to come so far for my sake ! God bless 
you. Thanks, thanks ! " and called out in the same breath 
to the coachman, " Drive on ! drive on ! " I was so taken 
aback : it was not the way to show my pleasure and gratitude ; 
it was a piece of awkward embarrassment. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 449 

The result of my Jutland journey showed itself at Christ- 
mas, when I brought out a " Story from the Sand Hills/' which 
was very well received \ but one reviewer of my book was of 
the opinion that one would certainly find himself deluded, if, 
after he had read these last descriptions and my sketches of 
Skagen, he should take a trip there and expect to find so 
poetic a country as had been pictured by me. I had mean- 
while the pleasure of receiving a visit from Conference Coun- 
cilor Brinck Seidelin, the man who could best judge of the 
truth of what I had written, and who had himself given an 
excellent sketch of Skagen in his description of Hjorring 
County ; he thanked me in the warmest manner for the ac- 
curacy and truthfulness with which I had represented the 
country. I had a letter from the clergyman of Skagen, ex- 
pressing his thanks for the sketches of nature there, especially 
because they were so true. He added : " I shall now also 
believe, and tell strangers when they come and stand on 
the mound of the sand-buried church, — c Jorgen lies beneath 
there.' " 

Christmas should have been spent at dear, home-like Bas 
nos ; but I must first, as always, visit Ingemann. I set out 
early in the morning of the 17th December; on the railway 
came the sorrowful tidings that the castle of Fredericksborg 
was in flames. The recollection of my last visit there came 
freshly to my mind, when, as I have related, I sailed in the 
royal barge, and while the sunset was burning in the sky, read 
what the wind told of Waldemar Daae. What wealth and 
glory vanished there ! 

At Ingemann's I received a letter from King Max of Bava 
ria. He wrote that when the year before, on the Sternberg 
Lake, in the royal boat, I read some of my Wonder Stories, he 
resolved that I should be one of his Knights of Maximilian. 
The obstacles then in the way were now removed, and he 
sent me this high order. It was founded by the King, so well 
disposed toward art and science. On the order is a design 
of Pegasus when it is intended for poets and artists ; Miner- 
va's owl when given to a man of science. I knew that in 
Munich it was bestowed on the poet Geibel, the artist Kaul 
bach, and the savan Liebig. I have been told that the two 
29 



450 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

first foreigners who have received it were the Frenchman 
Arago and the Danish poet Andersen. 

I was made happy by the noble, art-loving King's appreci- 
ation. Ingemann and his wife shared in my pleasure, and 
before I left their home came still another token, a Danish 
and splendid acknowledgment, which Ingemann had in a 
friendly way been regretting, because it did not come. Now 
I had it. Just after my return home from Jutland, I went 
one day out to the bath-house near Copenhagen ; on the way I 
met Bishop Mourad, who was the Minister of Public Worship : 
we had known each other for a long series of years ; as young 
students we lived in the same house, and he had asked me to 
visit him. Afterward when he was the minister at Falster, and 
I was on my way from the fine manor Coselitye, but on account 
of stormy weather could not get away from the island, I spent 
a couple of enjoyable, intellectual feast-days with him and fam- 
ily. We had not since met. Now he stopped me and said 
that the pension of six hundred rix-dollars which I had each 
year from the state was altogether too little ; that I ought to 
have a thousand rix-dollars, the same as the poets Hertz, Chris- 
tian Winther, and Paludan-Miiller. It was a surprise of pleas- 
ure, yet I was perplexed ; I pressed his hand and said, — 

"I thank you. I do indeed need it; I am growing old. 
The honorarium for authors at home is, as you know, very 
small — thanks, therefore, my heartfelt thanks ; but do not 
misunderstand me when I say, what you will yourself feel, 
that I shall never remind you of what you have said — I can- 
not do that." We parted; for a long time I heard nothing 
further, until now, during my visit at Ingemann's, there came 
through the "Advertiser," in which the Rigsdag's proceedings 
were reported, the announcement that the pension of six hun- 
dred rix-dollars which had been granted me was to be in- 
creased by the yearly addition of four hundred rix-dollars. 
My dear Ingemann, in high spirits and joy, drank my health, 
and my friends sent me their congratulations ; I felt with deep 
humility that I was the child of fortune, always defended and 
sheltered, and it gave me a fear, such as I have often known, 
that such fortune could not always be by me, and there would 
soon come seas of trouble and days of heaviness. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



451 



On Christmas Eve I was at Basnos where the Christmas- 
tree was lighted not only for the guests of the house, but also 
there was one for the poor children on the estate. Their tree 
was quite as fine and brilliant as ours. Madame Scavenius had 
herself dressed it and lighted every candle. I had cut out 
and fastened figures which hung from the green branches ; 
they spread a table about it with such Christmas gifts as would 
especially delight the mothers of the poor children, — cloth for 
petticoats, linen for underclothing, and many another useful 
thing. The poor women were well cared for and had a happy 
evening \ we had many. The snow fell, the sleigh-bells 
jingled, the wild swans sang on the sea-shore ; it was charming 
without, it was snug within. The young people danced till 
the morning light. From the neighboring place and from 
miles about, relations and friends were invited. From the 
neighboring place, Waldemar Daae's knightly house, the family 
and their guests came ; among these was one I was especially 
glad to meet, the romance writer St. Aubain, by which pseu- 
donym the author Karl Bernhard is widely known. His fresh, 
spirited sketches, and his character, so true to Danish nature, 
gave him a distinguished place. He was, besides, kind, ready 
to help, and always devoted to others ; one could scarcely 
believe that he was up among the sixties, so youthful in ap- 
pearance to outsiders \ he was among the dancers, among the 
talkers, and with me open, hearty, laughing at the world's 
littleness, but happy too with the blessings he found there. 

i860. 

The sixth of January I was again in Copenhagen ; it was 
the elder Collin's birthday, — a notable day for me, and for 
numberless others whom he had helped and aided a piece 
further over some rough road of life. At the beginning of 
this year there was started the idea of erecting a monument 
in honor of H. C. Orsted, the discoverer of electro-magnetism. 
The idea originated with Madame Jerichau ■ so, too, the idea 
of the monument already built to the poet Oehlenschlager 
came from Henriette Wulff, who, through her brother and 
other clever men, carried it out. Among the names of those 
who signed the call for Orsted's monument were, of states- 



452 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

men, Privy-Councilor Tillisch ; of men of science, Forchham- 
mer ; State-Councilor Suhr, to represent commerce ; and the 
poet H. C. Andersen. The execution of the monument was 
intrusted to Professor Jerichau, who for a fixed sum was to 
have the statue cast in bronze by a certain date, and placed in 
one of the public squares of Copenhagen. 

Spring came and with it travel time. The woods were 
green ; Ingemann wrote and bade me come. Soon I was at 
Soro, and a few days after in Rendsborg. Captain Lonborg 
and his wife had invited me there. I spent a few delightful 
days here, heard the praises only of whatever was Danish, 
saw the Dannebrog wave, and had nothing to do with obstinate 
people w T ho declaimed against Danish things. There was quite 
a show of military here, the officers honored me with a feast, 
and when I was asked to stay a day longer, and give pleasure 
to the soldiers by reading them some of my stories, I was of 
course at once ready. A large club-house, the " Harmony," 
I believe, was selected for the reading, and decorated with flow- 
ers and the Danish flag. The King's bust stood above draped 
with the Dannebrog. Officers and subalterns, besides many 
ladies and some individuals of the citizen class in the town 
who understood Danish, were given places ; the recruits filled 
the gallery ; the band played between the reading of each 
story. The sun was still shining when I went home to Lon- 
borg's house, where several friends had met. " It was a 
Danish day," they all said. 

At midnight when I was in bed, I heard a noise outside ; I 
became restless, and thought immediately, "Now some more 
fun ; now follows a demonstration from the Germans." My host 
and his wife thought the same. I lay listening a few seconds 
when a song began given by beautiful voices, and I heard the 
words, " Sleep well." It was truly a friendly greeting which 
the Germans brought the Danish poet, whose Wonder Stories 
and Tales they knew in translation. 

In the morning the Danish military came and played out- 
side our house, and when later in the day I went to the railway 
station, the Dannebrog was flying over it. A deputation from 
the soldiery brought me their thanks for the reading of the 
day previous ; they stationed themselves in ranks, sang Danish 



THE STORY.OF MY LIFE. 



453 



songs, and when the train started gave a ringing hurra for 
their good-by greeting. 

It was my intention to travel once more in my life to Rome, 
and pass the winter in Italy. I made the journey through 
Germany by Eisnach and Niirnberg, and visited for the first 
time the old city Regensburg, and made an excursion out to 
the splendid Valhalla which King Ludvig had built as by en^ 
chantment on the rocky cliff. 

In Munich good friends were expecting me. I spent charm- 
ing hours there, rich in enjoyment, with the artist Kaulbach ; in 
his house one found such a fresh and home-like spirit ; several 
of Munich's famous names met there, Liebig, Seboldt, Geibel, 
and Kobbel. King Max and his noble consort showed me 
great kindness and favor. It was not easy to leave the artistic, 
hospitable Munich'. 

But an excursion of great interest called me for a few days 
out to the mountains to see the miracle-play at Oberammer- 
gau. Every tenth year they repeat the people's plays here, a 
relic of the mysteries of the Middle Ages. The celebrated 
Edward Devrient saw them in the year 1850, and he gave an 
interesting account of them. Now in i860, they had begun 
the twenty-eighth of May, and would continue once a week 
until the sixteenth of September. 

The inhabitants of Oberammergau live mostly by wood-carv- 
ing. Now they rested from work for this was the festival year. 
Strangers came from afar to take part in it. The stream of 
people was continually increasing. Every one was received 
as a welcome guest, not as a stranger. Each was lodged for 
a very small sum, and entertained to the very best of their 
power and means. I was most excellently provided for • 
my friends from Munich looked out for that. The priest 
of the place, Herr Daisenberger, who had written and pub- 
lished the history of Oberammergau received me with great 
hospitality. 

There was life and stir in the houses and without ; the towns- 
folk and peasants bustled about, the bells rang ; cannon were 
fired, the pilgrims came singing on their winding way. The 
whole night long there was song and music, plenty of excite- 
ment, but no rioting. The next morning, Pastor Daisenberger 



454 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



took me to the theatre that had been built of beams and 
boards on the green plain outside the town. At eight o'clock 
the miracle-play was to begin, and would continue, with only 
an hour's intermission, until five in the afternoon. We sat 
under the open sky ; the wind sighed above us, the birds 
came and flew out again. I thought of the old Indian play 
in the open air where the Sakuntala was given ; I thought of 
the Greek theatre ; I saw before me the stage for the chorus, 
and the chorus leaders that entered with song. Recitative and 
speech gave connection to the action. The whole story of the 
Passion, illustrated by parallel passages from the Old Testa- 
ment, was given in living pictures. Behind the choir and choir 
leaders the stage was built, the real theatre with movable cur- 
tains, side scenes, and background. The theatre itself was 
flanked on each side by a small structure with a balcony ; in 
one of these was placed the High-priest, in the other Pilate ; 
the dramatic action on the part of each took place on the 
balcony. In each of the two mentioned buildings was an 
arched door, through which one could see into the streets of 
Jerusalem. The entire, often threefold action was astonish- 
ingly well put on the stage. One was with the High-priest, 
with Pilate ; one stood with the people when they waved the 
palms and when they cried, " Crucify Him ! " There was an 
ease and a beauty about it that must impress every one. It 
is said that the persons whom the community unanimously 
appointed to the sacred roles must be of spotless life, and that 
the one who represented Christ always, before the beginning 
of the Passion play, partook of the sacrament at the altar. 
Last year it was a young image-carver, Schauer ; they say 
that the spiritual exertion possessed him in such a degree, 
that after the acting he was not able to partake of anything, 
. or to speak with any one before he had recovered himself in 
solitude. 

The whole play was like a church-going where the sermon 
was not merely heard but seen in living representation. Cer- 
tainly every one went away edified, his soul filled with a sense 
of that love which gave itself for unborn generations. In 
1870 the Passion play will again be given in Oberammergau. 

My good hearted, well-read host said to me quite frankly 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 455 

that he had never read anything of mine, but knew that I 
wrote Wonder Stories ; I saw a kind of smile playing about 
his mouth — he did not read Wonder Stories. I had with me 
a little volume of them translated into German, and I gave it 
to him, and asked him to read occasionally a little in it ; he 
took it kindly, and honored me immediately afterward with 
his description of Oberammergau. The day after as we were 
going to the Passion play the hospitable man said to me, " I 
have already read the little book you gave me yesterday. Call 
them not Wonder Stories, — they are far beyond such. The 
1 Story of a Mother,' I shall be able to tell at a child's grave, 
and carry faith by it to the bereaved." 

From Munich I went by Lindau to Switzerland, up into 
the Jura Mountains, to the little watchmaking town Le Locle, 
where in 1833 I wrote my poem, " Agnete and the Mermaid." 
At that time the journey up here was a laborious one, several 
hours by diligence • now one makes the trip by steam on the 
railway, making a long ascent ; then one comes to a stopping- 
place j the locomotive is taken from the front and placed in 
the rear, the last car becomes now the first, a new incline is 
mounted to the next section, where again a locomotive waits 
to send it up the next incline. It is a true " Voyage en zigzag" 

At the top the railway passes through one of the largest 
tunnels, 4,200 metres long, and after one has just a peep of 
daylight and a breath of fresh air one goes in a twinkling into . 
a lesser tunnel, half as long only, and then comes to the 
pretty mountain-town of Chaux de Fonds, and soon in a deep 
valley up at the top of the mountain, Le Locle. Here lives 
and works my countryman and friend, Urban Jiirgensen, 
from whom every year a great number of watches are sent to 
America. 

Eighty years ago there was not a watchmaker in the country ; 
now in and about Le Locle 20,000 men support themselves by 
this craft. There once came here by chance an English horse- 
dealer, whose watch had become broken ■ he was directed to 
the smith, Daniel Jean Richard, a skillful man, who certainly 
never before had taken a watch to pieces, but now he ventured 
it, put it together again so that it was in good order and went. 
He took a fancy to make a watch for himself; he succeeded, 






456 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



and from that hour he turned all his thought to watchmaking ; 
he taught his seven sons, and soon Le Locle was established 
as the first watchmaking place. It should raise a monument 
to the smith, Daniel Jean Richard. 

My friend Jules Jiirgensen was living, during this visit of 
mine, in the same old house where I had lived with his uncle 
Hourriet. I occupied my old room, visited again the under- 
ground water-mill, saw the Doub Fall, drove from the pine and 
birch woods to the French side where the beech-trees grow, 
where the sun shines far warmer than at Le Locle ; but warm 
hearts were there, sympathizing friends. 

Jiirgensen's oldest son, who with his brother are famous 
craftsmen in their father's art, have also no little literary skill. 
The single French translations of my writings did not seem 
to be very good, and my young friend wished to see if he could 
not produce better ones. With my cooperation during my 
visit here, a translation was begun. I read, and saw to my 
surprise how far ahead, as regards the expression of feeling 
and tone, the Danish language is of the French : they have 
often only one word where we have a large choice. I would 
call the French language plastic : it is akin to sculpture, where 
all is precise, clear, and well defined ; but our Danish mother 
tongue has a richness of color, a variety in expression that 
fits the varying tone. I was pleased at the wealth of my 
.mother tongue, which is so supple and musical when it is 
spoken as it should be spoken. In Le Locle, on the Jura 
heights, it was that I made this discovery. Jules Jiirgensen's 
translation of the " Marsh King's Daughter," and a few more 
of my Wonder Stories, was issued with the imprint of Joel 
Charbuliez in Geneva and Paris, in 1861, under the title of 
" Danish Fancies." 

In Geneva I wished to spend some time : the way thither 
from Le Locle lay by St. Croix to Yverdun, through the 
loveliest part of the Jura Mountains, and where one from the 
heights has the most magnificent view of the Alpine range and 
the lakes of Neufchatel and Geneva. I saw the view in the 
wonderful evening light with the Alpine glow and the harmo- 
nious stillness. A good pension at Madame Achard's in 
Geneva was recommended to me : I had a room looking out 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 457 

on the lake. I made excursions out on the lake, had a 
delightful company of French and Americans about ' me, and 
I soon found friends and acquaintances in town : I was intro- 
duced to the Swiss poet Petit-Senn, a most excellent old man, 
— a Swiss Beranger. He had a pretty country-house outside 
the town. I dined with him, and found him very youthful and 
merry and full of spirits. Dinner over and the coffee drunk, 
he took his guitar, and like a Northern minstrel sang several 
of his songs. 

One of the first days after I had moved to Madame Achard's 
I wished to visit one of the families I was introduced to, and 
I took a drosky at my door and showed the driver the address 
on the letter, the street and house I wanted to go to. I sat in 
the carriage and we drove and drove : it was a long way up 
street and down street, beyond the old abandoned rampart ; 
at length I was at the place. I got out of the carriage, looked 
about me and found myself in a street hard by the square 
from which I had driven all this long way. I saw Madame 
Achard's house from which I had set out. 

" Are you a Swiss ? " I asked the driver. He answered 
"Yes." 

"That cannot be true," said I. " I came from a long way 
off, from far up in the North, and there we have read of Switz- 
erland and heard of William Tell, and the noble, brave Swiss 
people stand in high honor with us ; and now I come down 
here, so that I may tell people at home truly about these 
brave people, and then I take my seat in a carriage over 
there the other side of the square, show T the address where I 
want to go, — it is only a few steps to drive, and I am carried 
all over town on a half-hour tour. It is a cheat, and no Swiss 
will cheat. You are not a Swiss ! " 

The man at this was quite abashed : he was a young fellow, 
and burst out, " You shall not pay at all, or only pay what 
you please. The Swiss are brave folk." His words and 
voice touched me and we parted good friends. 

During my visit at Geneva I received the news of the death 
of the poet Johan Ludvig Heiberg. I have, in " The Story of 
my Life," spoken of his distinction and of my relations to him. 
He had in his popular " Flying Post " brought forward my 



458 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



earliest poems ; he had when I, as a young author, applied 
for a travelling stipend, given me the striking testimonial that 
in humor I was to be ranked with our eminent Wessel, the 
most noted humorous poet in Denmark. There came indeed 
a time later when Heiberg opposed me, and wrote of me in 
his book, "A Soul after Death," but soon there came again 
an appreciation and perception of what God had bestowed 
upon me. 

The news of Heiberg's death came unexpectedly and affected 
me greatly. All the men of genius and power whom I had 
known and loved were departing, one after another. 

I stayed in Geneva until late in September. The wind al- 
ready blew cold and wintry from the Jura Mountains and sent 
the yellow leaves whirling from the trees. The reports from 
Italy were not very encouraging. I doubted whether I could 
obtain agreeable winter-quarters in Rome, and the cholera 
was in Spain. I resolved to pass the winter in Denmark. It 
was cold as winter here in Geneva, yet before I drew near 
home I was to have some summer in the luxury of the fruit 
season. By chance, as I was going by way of Basle to Stutt- 
gart, I came upon a great agricultural fair. People had 
flocked thither from town and country. Fruits of every kind 
beautified the first part of the festival. Heaps of corn and 
hop-vines, pears and grapes, vegetables and fruits were dis- 
played in arabesque splendor : ever since, whenever I look 
back upon the country of Wiirtemberg, this autumn fruit-show 
stands out in my thoughts. 

With my young friend the painter Bamberg from Basle I 
came to Stuttgart : he was received at the station by the 
distinguished and busy book-seller Hoffman, who at once in 
the heartiest way invited me also to stay in his house. The 
theatre intendant gave me a place in his box. 

" You certainly can travel easily ! " said friend^ in Copen- 
hagen to me, when I came home and told of all the hospitality 
and all the good fortune I had had. A welcome fireside on 
the Jura, in Stuttgart too, in Munich, in Maxen, — all the 
way! "You have your house on the locomotive dragon's 
tail," Ingemann once wrote me \ and it was really almost so. 

Christmas Eve I was not sitting in Rome as I had thought 
to do, but was happy at Basnos. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



459 



In a number of " Household Words/' Charles Dickens had 
brought together several Arabian proverbs and parables. 
Among them there was one which he referred to in a note : 
" ' When they came to shoe the Pasha's horses, the beetle 
stretched out his leg.' This is exquisite ; we commend it to 
the attention of Hans Christian Andersen." I wanted very 
much to make a Wonder Story of it, but it did not come ; and 
not till a year after, on the next to the last day of the year, 
during a visit at Basnos, where I accidentally read Dickens's 
words, the story of " The Beetle " suddenly found life. The 
day after I wrote the " Snow Maiden." This closed my 
literary work in i860. 

1861. 

As soon as April came I felt my wings begin to creak. The 
bird of passage life came with the first warm rays of the sun. 
I wished once more in my life to see Rome, and carry out the 
journey which I had to give up the year before. This time 
there accompanied me my young friend Jonas Collin, son of 
Councilor of State Collin. We went by Geneva and Lyon to 
Nice \ here we rested, and from this point began the only new 
part of the journey as far as I was concerned, — the artistic, 
pretty Cornici road, between Nice and Genoa: one ought 
rather to travel it on foot or loiter along in a carriage, in order 
to enjoy the charming view that is discovered between cliffs 
and wooded tracts out over the rolling Mediterranean. There 
were palms here of a luxuriance which I have seen in no place 
in Italy ; every year palm branches are carried in great quanti- 
ties to Rome, to be blessed by the Pope and distributed. The 
rocky little kingdom of Monaco lies, with its city and district, 
like a map drawn on the water ; it lay before us in the bright 
sunshine like a little toy kingdom, and one wishes to climb 
down there to it. 

The journey from Nice to Genoa by diligence takes a day 
and night, but the road is far too beautiful a piece of art for us 
to allow half of it to be passed over in the night-time, so we 
made the journey in two parts, stopping over night half way, 
and securing our places in the diligence that was to go on the 
next day. Old memories were recalled in Genoa where I had 



460 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 



not been since my first visit there in 1833. We took the steam- 
boat, and had fair weather to Civita Vecchia. 

On the whole journey thus far, not a soul had asked us for 
our passport y now in the Papal States began that passport 
nuisance in the Waviest fashion ; no one was allowed to step 
on shore until his passport had been dispatched ; every pas- 
senger must immediately at the landing place make his way — 
and it was not at all a short way — to the town-hall, where he 
did not get his passport but a sort of receipt for it, a permit 
to go by rail to Rome ; in the middle of the journey the per- 
mit must be shown, and now at Rome one must through the 
Danish Consul manage to get a residence card, and it w r as a 
week before we got that. Rome, that gets its great advantage 
from the visits of foreigners, does not seem to think at all how 
it can make such visits -easy. 

In the old Cafe Graece, where the Consul for Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway, my friend Brovo, lived, I got apartments 
for myself and my young travelling companion, and now we 
went out into the great city, so familiar and so homelike. I 
once more saw and could point out to him all the famous 
sights. There had been no great change since I was last 
here ; people talked a good deal, however, of the insecurity to 
life and property in the streets of the city, but I myself saw 
no signs of it. Ruins, museums, churches, and gardens were 
visited, friends and acquaintances sought out ; one of the very 
first of these was my countryman Kuchler, now Pietro, a monk 
in the convent near the ruins of Borgia's palace. With his 
tonsure, and dressed in a coarse brown monkish dress, he came 
forward to meet me, embraced and kissed me and spoke with 
the familiar " Thou." He carried me to his atelier •, a large 
apartment with a most delightful lookout upon orange-trees 
and rose bushes, to the Coliseum and over the Campagna to 
the picturesque mountains beyond. I was happy at being 
with my friend, and in an ecstasy over the lovely vie'w. 

" It is wonderfully beautiful here," I exclaimed. 

" Yes, here thou also oughtest to live, — to live in peace and 
with God," said he with a quiet friendly smile that had a seri- 
ous meaning. But I answered quickly and decidedly, — 

" For a few days I could stay here, but then I should need 
to pass out into the world again and live there." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 46 1 

He was at work upon a copy after Domenichino, ordered 
by Mr. Pugaard of Copenhagen • the money for it was of 
course to be paid to the monastery. 

The Norwegian poet, Bjornstjerne Bjornson was in Rome, 
and I was glad now to make his acquaintance here, for I never 
had met him or seen him before. It was quite a long time at 
home in Copenhagen before I read the w r orks of the gifted 
author ; several had said that his books would not suit my 
taste : It is best, I thought, to try that for myself; so I read his 
story, " A Happy Boy." It was as if I stood in the open 
country, under the fresh sky, by the breezy birch woods ; I 
was captivated by it, and went immediately to all those who 
had told me that Bjornson would not please my taste, and said 
to them that it was really a wrong done me, and I was aston- 
ished that they should believe me incapable of being glad and 
grateful for a true poet. Then one and another showed that 
they thought Bjornson and I were so opposite in our nature 
that we should immediately be inimical to each other. 

It so happened that on my journey from Copenhagen I was 
asked through a third person if I would not take out some 
books to him from his wife. I consented very willingly, and 
on calling upon her I told her how dear her husband was to 
me as a poet and I begged her to write to him that he must 
be prepared to like me when we met, for I thought a great 
deal of him, and we must be friends. And from our first meet- 
ing in Rome until the present hour he has been most kind and 
considerate toward me \ he was as ready to like me as I had 
asked and wished. 

The Scandinavians had given an entertainment to our Con- 
sul Brovo in a rural outskirt of Rome \ I have given \ picture 
of the place in my Wonder Story " Psyche " ; the entertainment 
was intended for me also, on this my fourth visit from the 
North to the Roman city. Bjornstjerne Bjornson read a pretty 
song he had written in my honor. 

'* Our sky is not so free, 

A chill is on our sea, 

Nor have our woods the palm-tree's sway, 

As in the South, men say. 

But the northern lights flash over the sky, 

The woods whisper fairy tales airily, 



462 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

And the sea doth bound 
As the lingering sound 
Of our fathers' song of victory. 

" A traveller from that wonder land, 

Thou bringest tidings in thy hand 

Of winter's dreams by northern lights, * 

The pranks of the woods in their fancy flights ; 

Aye, of a place so far away 

That folks and beasts together play, 

And the veriest flower 

Will talk by the hour 
So plain that a child its meaning can say. 

" Where heaven itself in holy love 
Bends as a Christmas-tree above, 
And all goes on before God's face, — 
Tidings thou bearest from that place, 
And comest to sirocco-laden Rome, 
Breathing of beech and birch from home, 

With melody 

And witchery 
From the north land's faerie." 

I was only one month in Rome this time. Among the ac- 
quaintances which I made, one is especially dear to me, the 
American sculptor Story. He took me to his studio, where I 
was delighted with a statue of Beethoven and an allegorical 
representation of America ; he introduced me also to his wife 
and children at his apartments in the Barberini Palace. He 
brought together there one day several American and English 
friends, with all their flock of children. I sat in the midst of 
the circle of children, and read with unpardonable boldness in 
English*which I did not know at all well, but I read, at re- 
quest, the story of " The Ugly Duckling ; " the children gave 
me a wreath of flowers. 

Mr. Story took me to see the English poetess, Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning ; she was ill and suffering greatly, but she 
looked upon me with her lustrous gentle eyes, pressed my 
hand, and thanked me for my writings. Two years afterward 
I heard from Lytton Bulwer's son how kindly and tenderly 
Mrs. Browning thought of me ; her last poem, too, " The North 
and the South," written in Rome in May, 186 1, on the day of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 463 

my visit, closes the volume of her writings called " Last 
Poems," that appeared after her death. I lay the fragrant 
flowers between these leaves. 



THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 

I. 

" Now give us lands where the olives grow," 

Cried the North to the South, 
" Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow 
Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard row ! M 

Cried the North to the South. 

u Now give us men from the sunless plain," 

Cried the South to the North, 
u By need of work in the snow and the rain 
Made strong and brave by familiar pain ! " 
Cried the South to the North. 

II. 

11 Give lucider hills and intenser seas," 

Said the North to the South, 
" Since ever by symbols and bright degrees 
Art, child-like, climbs to the dear Lord's knees," 
Said the North to the South. 

" Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer," 

Said the South to the North, 
tl That stand in the dark on the lowest stair 
While affirming of God, ' He is certainly there,' n 
Said the South to the North. 

III. 

" Yet O, for the skies that are softer and higher," 

Sighed the North to the South ; 
" For the flowers that blaze and the trees that aspire; 
And the insects made of a song or a fire ! " 

Sighed the North to the South. 

"And O for a seer to discern the same ! " 

Sighed the South to the North ; 
" For a poet's tongue of baptismal flame 
To call the tree or flower by its name ! " 

Sighed the South to the North. 



464 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

IV. 

The North sent therefore a man of men 

As a grace to the South ; 
And thus to Rome came Andersen : 
" Alas ! but must you take him again ? " 

Said the South to the North. 

The sun already burnt with fervent rays ; people were going 
out to the hills, and Collin and I started on our home journey. 
We visited Pisa, and spent a week at Florence. From % Leg- 
horn we took steamer for Genoa. The weather was stormy, 
the sea rolled heavily, and we were all sea-sick ; in the morning 
the rain came pouring down. I felt very unwell, and so worn 
out that when we drew near Genoa I could think of nothing 
but how to reach my destination and go that day to Turin. 
As we drew near to land, volleys from cannon announced the 
sad news that Cavour was dead. 

The following day I still felt unfit for travelling, yet hoped 
that by setting out in the morning we might be able to reach 
Turin in season to attend Cavour's funeral. We reached 
there in the afternoon and heard that it had already taken 
place the evening before. His picture hung in all the picture 
shops, and I bought the one that was said to be the most like 
him. 

Later in the week we came to Milan, and from the cathe- 
dral roof, in the midst of beautiful statues of saints carved in 
marble, we saw the sunlit Alps ; and before the diligence car- 
ried us over the Simplon, we spent a few days of sunshine 
and moonlit nights at Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore. Our 
stay in Switzerland was longest at Montreux. Here was 
wrought my Wonder Story " The Ice Maiden." The sad acci- 
dent that befell the young bridal pair on their honeymoon, 
when they visited the little island by Villeneuve, and the 
bridegroom was drowned, I took for the fact that should be 
the basis of a story in which I would show the Swiss nature 
as it had lain in my thought after many visits to that glorious 
land. 

At Lausanne we received intelligence from home that old 
Mr. Collin lay on his death-bed : it was presumed that God 
would already have called him away when we should receive 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 465 

our letter, and so we were bidden not to hasten our journey 
home. We kept on northward, and spent a few days with 
friends Auf der Mauer at Brunnen, and met there the Librarian 
of the monastery at Einsiedeln, Father Gall-Mosel, a lovely 
and spiritual man. The monastery itself is the most esteemed 
in Switzerland, and much visited by pilgrims and strangers 
from Germany and France. Einsiedeln lies about a mile 
away from the high-road between Brunnen and the Lake of 
Zurich. Collin and I were unwilling to pass it by, and reached 
it just on the day of the celebration of the one thousandth 
year of the establishment of the monastery. 

The little town was filled with strangers, who gathered in 
the church, which was gayly dressed with flowers and candles 
and inscriptions. Many collected outside in the place by the 
bubbling springs and drank of the water of each, for the say- 
ing goes that Christ once was in Einsiedeln and drank of the 
water, but of which spring no one knows, and so people drink 
of them all. 

We visited my acquaintance, the Librarian, who was very 
friendly, and accompanied by several young ecclesiastics took 
us to see the notable things in the convent, and carried us to 
the church, where the flower-decked sarcophagus of the 
Founder was seen, bearing beautiful memorial inscriptions 
written by our learned guide. We saw the treasures of the 
library, and for one thing an old Bible in Danish translation, 
and when a wish was expressed for a newer one, I promised 
to furnish it, and there it now is. 

From holiday bright Einsiedeln we came to Nuremberg. 
Here also was a festival ; flags were waving in all the streets. 
There was a musical festival going on, not of Minnesingers, 
but of the choral societies of our time. All the music asso- 
ciations of the different Bavarian towns were met here to give 
an immense musical festival. The people from the neighbor- 
hood all flocked to it, and it was not easy to find a place at 
the hotels : but as always, I was in luck ; I found the snuggest 
little chamber in the world. From Nuremberg we came to 
Brunswick, and here too the flags were flying from the houses : 
garlands hung round about, and the streets were bestrewn 
with flowers. The town was celebrating its birthday, a cus- 
30 



466 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

torn reaching back a very long way. I believe this was the 
thousandth year. It seemed as if our return journey was to 
be taken only through towns that were celebrating some fes- 
tival. 

At the Soro station Collin and I separated, he to go to 
Copenhagen, I to Ingemann's. Here I got intelligence of 
the dear old Collin's death. " During his last days he lay in 
perfect quiet, recognizing no one ■ you would scarcely have 
known him," they wrote. I went immediately to town to be 
with the bereaved ones. 

The fire is out on the hearth at home, 

And sorrow sits in the family room ; 

Through Jesus to God thy life did aspire ; 

Here, a handful of ashes — there, the flaming of fire. 

So I sang ; many and better songs there were, but surely 
none more deeply felt than mine : so many recollections of 
deeds and words moved through my mind. 

I went into town, and would gladly have been alone, but 
all the carriages were filled, except one in which sat two 
ladies ; I took my place there. The elder one sat still, half 
asleep in the corner, the younger had stretched herself out 
on the other seat, occupying the width of the carriage, and 
enjoyed her fruit and luncheon : she looked like a Spanish 
girl ; her black eyes shone and carried on an entire conversa- 
tion before she began to speak. 

" I believe I know you," said she in French. I said the 
same to her and asked her name. 

" Pepitta," she answered. She was a Spanish danseuse who 
the year before had been overwhelmed with flowers at the 
Casino Theatre. I gave her my name, and she told the elder 
one, her companion, that I was a poet, and that she had at the 
Casino acted a part in one of my pieces, where she spoke 
French and carried on a Spanish dance. It Was the comedy 
" Ole Lukoie." She told her companion the contents of the 
piece in very few words. " There is a young chimney-sweep 
in love with a Spanish danseuse, and the whole thing is a 
dream." 

" Charmant" said the old lady. But I was not in the mood 
to carry on a lively conversation. At the first station I looked 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 467 

for a place in another carriage, and excused my leaving them 
by explaining that I had found friends with whom I wished 
to travel. 

I drew near Copenhagen, and went to that home of homes 
where were gathered the children and children's children of 
that father and grandfather who lay in his deep sleep of death : 
the day of burial followed and I wrote to Ingemann : — 

" I found all of Collin's family in the old home \ they were 
all quiet, but profoundly sad. My old friend lay in his coffin : 
he looked peaceful, and as if in sleep ; a sweet calm spread 
over his face. I dreaded much the day of burial, fearing that 
I should be too much overcome in the church, but I felt 
stronger than I should have dared believe. Bishop Bindes- 
boll's discourse did not satisfy me : it dwelt too long upon his 
political life and on King Frederick VI. Pastor Blodel after- 
ward spoke a few words at the grave : they formed an excel- 
lent supplement to the Bishop's discourse, giving there just 
what should be said. The rest of the day I spent quite alone, 
and a sad time it was to me. I missed that which I had 
been so used to for a long series of years, the daily seeing of 
old Collin and talking with him. The house is now strangely 
lonesome. Since I came home two acquaintances besides 
have died, — the composer Glaeser and the artisan Gamst : it is 
strange to see the ranks so broken in upon : now am 1 myself 
in the first ranks of the march." 

Time passed on toward Christmas: I had during my jour- 
ney and after my return home worked industriously, and when 
Christmas came there was published a new volume of my 
stories. " The Ice Maiden," as well as " The Butterfly," were 
both written in Switzerland ; " Psyche," however, during my 
stay in Rome. An incident that occurred on my first visit 
there in 1833-34, came to my mind and gave me the first 
suggestion ; a young nun was to be buried, and when her 
grave came to be dug there was found a beautiful statue of 
Bacchus. u The Snail and the Rosebush " was also written 
in Rome, and belongs to the class of my earlier Wonder Stories. 
I dedicated the book to Bjornstjerne Bjornson. 

Christmas was spent at Holsteinborg, where I wrote the 
following letter to Ingemann : — 



468 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" Holsteinborg, Christmas Bay, 1861. 

" Dear Friend, — My chamber is right up against the 
church. I can walk through my door straight to the pulpit. The 
organ is playing, the singing of psalms is borne in upon me as 
I write this letter. There is a pleasant Christmas festival here, 
and last evening there was great delight among the children. 
All the little folks were most happy over Christmas and its 
glory. I also had my Christmas-table with many things on it 
that served to expound my stories. The cat sat on the ink- 
stand, the Nis danced with the penholder, the butterflies flew 
in Florentine mosaic on the paper weight ; my little girl with 
matches also I found there. I had many thoughts yesterday 
of my Christmas times in childhood, the richest in memory I 
have ever spent, even though the chamber was so small and I 
had no Christmas-tree. But grits, geese, and apple-pie were 
never lacking, and in the evening there were two candles on 
the table. A half century of Christmas memories have I ! 
How wonderfully am I still borne along. Thanks for the two 
happy days spent with you and your wife. Give my greetings 
to Sophie also : she had certainly dressed a Christmas-tree 
for you and concealed it down in the cellar : i You should 
stay till Christmas Eve/ she said .to me. 

" God knows whether I shall be in Soro next Christmas ; 
my wish is to travel to Spain in the new year. I must always 
have my Christmas dreams, and they are of travel. I think 
of Italy or of Spain. The weather is mild, but I would rather 
have clear cold air and signs of snow. Last year it was so, 
with glittering snow and ice-clad trees ; then I wrote my 
story of 'The Snow Man.' This year my muse will not 
visit me. May a good and happy New Year fall upon all of 
us — no war, no cholera ! Peace and health abound ! So 
live well and heartily. Your faithful and devoted 

"H. C.' Andersen." 

1862. 

Immediately, as soon as the year began, while I was still 
out in the country, I received from Ingemann a letter full of 
hearty good-humor. Ingemann and H. C. Orsted, who both 
were fond of me, stood in their poetic nature quite opposite 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 469 

to one another, Orsted demanding of right strict truth, even 
when it was contained in the form of fancy. 

" The rational in rational things is Truth, the rational in 
fancy is Beauty, the rational in feeling is Goodness." So he 
once wrote to me and firmly believed. In the " Monthly Jour- 
nal of Literature," Orsted had handled most severely Inge- 
mann's fanciful poem, " Ole Navnlos " (" Ole Nameless "), so 
severely indeed that the kind-hearted philosopher Sibbern went 
to the defense in a paper, " Orsted and Ingemann ; " these two 
amiable men never knew or met each other, or they would cer- 
tainly have felt their kinship of nature. I used to repeat to 
each the sayings of the other, so that they came thus to have 
a mutual esteem. Orsted had now been dead several years. 

In a letter which I received from Ingemann when I was in 
the country, he writes : " I was this morning out at the railway 
station and went under the telegraph wires when they began 
to hum. What is the matter ? Can't I have leave to go on 
thinking ? what does H. C. Orsted want ? The wires buzzed 
and talked. What in the world is going on up there ? Then 
I felt it run through me. Orsted knows that I am going to 
write to Andersen to-day and so he is saying, Greet him for 
me ! So you see I have a greeting for you from H. C. Or- 
sted." 

It was the last letter I had from my dear Ingemann, and in 
the greeting he sent me I perceive the communion and affec- 
tionate intercourse which there really was between these two 
souls. God willed that they soon should meet. For the rest, 
the year began happily for me. The stories published at 
Christmas brought me many words of appreciation, and here 
are two instances. 

King Frederick VII. always preferred to hear me read my 
stories, not only at Fredricksborg, as I have related, but several 
times I was summoned to Christiansborg. Early in February 
I read thus to the king and a little company whom he had col- 
lected about him the four stories. " The Ice Maiden " espe- 
cially interested and moved him, for he had himself when a 
prince spent a good deal of time in Switzerland. A few days 
after the reading I received the following letter from his ma- 
jesty, written by his own hand : — 



470 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" My good Andersen, — It is a pleasure to me to send 
you my thanks for the happiness you afforded me by reading 
your delightful stories the other evening, and I can only say 
thus much, that I congratulate my country and its king that 
they have such a poet as you. Your well wishing, 

" Frederick R. 

" Christiansborg, February 13, 1862." 

I was exceedingly pleased with this kind, royal letter, which 
I treasure among the best of my souvenirs. With the letter 
came at the same time a gold box with his majesty's name 
engraved on it. 

I received a letter from Bjornstjerne Bjornson in Rome. 
He was much pleased with the dedication, and with every sin- 
gle story, especially with " The Ice Maiden." He wrote : — 

" c The Ice Maiden ' begins as if it were rejoicing and singing 
in the free air, by the pine-trees, and the blue water, and the 
Swiss cottages. You have sketched such a boy as I would 
gladly have for a brother, and all the scenery is so distinct 
with Babette, the miller, and the cats, that it is as if I had 
crossed the country and seen them all with my own eyes. I 
was so stirred that I must needs cry aloud, and had to make 
several stopping places. But, thou dear, gentle man, how 
could you have the heart to make such a violent ending for 
us to this lovely picture ! The thought that fashions the last 
portion has something divine in it, — so it impresses me, the 
thought that two people should be separated at the very high- 
est point of their happiness ; still more that you showed clearly 
how as when a sudden breeze ruffles the still water, so there 
dwelt in the souls of both that which could overthrow their 
happiness ; but that you should have the courage to do this 
with these two of all people ! " The letter closes, " Dear, dear 
Andersen, how much I have loved you, yet I believed confi- 
dently that you neither rightly understood me nor cared for 
me, although with your good heart you would gladly do both ; 
but now I see clearly what a happy mistake I made, and so I 
have been deceived into doubling my affection for you ! " 

I was exceedingly pleased over Bjornson's letter, happy at 
his friendship and affection for me, which he expressed in such 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



All 



lively terms. I may hint, too, at another letter which I had 
from a young unknown student from one of the Provinces, 
because of the poetry and naivete of the letter. There was 
inclosed in it a four-leaved clover, dry and pressed. He 
wrote of this that when he was a little boy and read for the 
first time my stories, he was delighted with them ; and his 
mother told him that Andersen had known dark days and 
gone through much, which so saddened the little fellow when 
he heard it that he immediately went into the fields and found 
a four-leaved clover, which he had heard brought good luck 
with it ; so he bade his mother send this to Andersen that he 
might be happy. The clover was not sent ; the mother put it 
away in her psalm-book. "Now several years have gone by," 
read the letter ; " I am become a student ; my mother died last 
year, and I found the four-leaved clover in her psalm-book. I 
have just been reading your new story ' The Ice Maiden/ and 
I read it with the same pleasure as when in my childhood I 
read your stories. Fortune has favored you, and you do not 
need the four-leaved clover, but I send it to you and tell you 
this little incident." 

This was about the substance of the letter, which I have 
lost. I do not remember the young man's name, and have 
not been able to thank him, but now in late years, perhaps he 
will read here my thanks and my remembrance of him. 

I sat reading and writing one evening late in February, when 
the newspaper came and I read: " Bernhard Severinlngemann 
is dead." I was overwhelmed, and this letter bore my grief: — 

" Dear blessed Madame Ingemann, — I first heard this 
evening by the paper what God had willed. I am grieved, 
but in grief only for you ; you are so lonely, for he has gone 
away from you. It must be to you as a sad dream, from which 
you long to wake and see him again by you. Our Lord is so 
good, only what is best for us comes to pass, — that I believe ; 
I cannot let go the faith. I would that I might have seen him 
once more and have talked with him ; we were both of us so 
young, and yet now all at once after these years old enough to 
go with him. I long for him. There is a life after this ; there 
must be if God be God. There is a happiness for our 



472 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



thoughts, so that I cannot be grieved except for you, my dear 
noble friend, if I may dare to call you thus. Do not be at the 
pains to answer this letter ; you have no mind for that now ; I 
know that you think kindly on me. Greet Sophie, your maid ; 
she, too, is affected, I know, for she was so attached to him and 
he to her. God give you strength, and raise you through days 
of peace to him, who is your dear, kind, never to be forgotten 
one. " With fervent sympathy, 

" H. C. Andersen." 

Early in March the fields lay white with snow, but the sky 
was charmingly clear, the sun shone, and I took the cars out 
to Soro, for it was the day of burial. , I stood in that home, 
where, from my school days at Slagelse until now an old man, I 
had spent such happy hours, where our talk had gone on in 
earnest and in jest. Madame Ingemann sat quiet, meek in 
sorrow, while the old, faithful maid, Sophie, burst into tears on 
meeting me, and spoke of her beloved dead, his kind words 
and gentle talk. 

From the academy the coffin was carried to the church, a 
great procession of mourners accompanying it, being repre- 
sentatives of all classes of the community. Many peasants 
followed : for them he had indeed spread open the history of 
Denmark ; his writings so told that story that the heart beat 
quicker on learning it. 

The coffin sank into the grave amidst the twittering of little 
birds, as the sun shone down. We have a picture of the fu- 
neral, and I wrote these words : 

"Bernhard Severin Ingemann. 

" By his cradle stood the Genius of Denmark and the Angel 
of Poetry, who looked through the child's gentle eyes into a 
heart that could not grow old with his years ; the. soul of the 
child would never depart, but he was to dwell as a gardener 
in the garden of poetry in our Danish land, and they gave 
him a greeting and a consecration by a kiss. 

" Wherever he looked there fell a sunbeam ; the dry branch 
which he touched put forth leaves and flowers ; he broke forth 
in song as the birds of heaven sing in gladness and inno- 
cence. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



473 



" From the field of popular faith, from the moss-grown graves 
of decaying time he took his seed-corn, and placed it by his 
heart and brain \ the seed thus planted grew and thrived till 
it became great in the peasant's low cottage, wound itself about 
under the roof like the St. John's wort, and put out broad 
leaves ; every leaf was a leaf from history for the peasant, that 
stirred in the deep winter evening over the listening circle • 
they heard of the old times in Denmark and of the Danish 
mind, and then their Danish hearts were lifted in gladness and 
love. 

11 He laid the seed-corn behind the sounding organ pipes, and 
the tree of singing cherubs wafted its branches, and the hymn 
sang itself — peace in the heart, gladness in God. 

" In the dry soil of every-day life he planted the flowering root 
of the wonder story, and it burst forth, unrolling in variegated 
beauty and striking oddity. He travelled with the storks to 
King Pharaoh's land, learned their morning and evening song, 
and understood every single word. Whatever he planted 
grew, because it had struck root in the hearts of the people. 
He spoke in their tones, in the Danish speech \ his native 
land's soul was the might of his sword, and his pure thoughts 
are like the fresh blowing sea-breeze. He has had his last 
Christmas. His life on earth is ended, his body is like cast-off 
clothing ; he was borne away, yet still he held fast by the hand 
of one — he could not let go that, the faithful hand of his wife, 
and he knew that it was wet with tears, an'd in that moment 
she was with him, to be with him when he should awaken. 

" Awake is he now, but she sits alone in that home where 
every one who entered grew gentler and better ; she sits in 
longing for him : the hour until the time of meeting comes is 
as one of our minutes ; that she knows ; ' thanksgiving and 
love ' rise from her lips, and from the young hearts of the 
Danish people. 

" That which may disappear and decay is laid in the grave, 
under the sound of church-bells and the singing of psalms 
and the tears of love \ what never can die is with God * what 
He planted is with us for our joy and blessing." 

My spring-time began early in May, when my manor home* 



474 THE ST0RY OF MY LIFE. 

life began. I was at the homelike Basnos, dear Holsteinborg, 
and the music loving Lerchenborg. Great plans of travel 
were laid, for I felt a strong desire to visit Spain : once had 
I stood at the entrance, but the summer heat and sickness had 
kept 'me back. Now I looked for a better season. I had in 
jest said to my young friend Jonas Collin, that if I were to 
win the prize in the lottery, then we should travel together to 
Spain, and even slip over to Africa \ but I did not win it and 
never should, but must get my share in another way. My 
Danish publisher, Reitzel, said to me one day that my collected 
writings were sold out : he would give me a new edition • for 
the first I had received only three hundred rix- dollars, but now 
he offered me three thousand. It was as unexpected as a lot- 
tery prize ; it was just as welcome, too, and Collin and I set 
out. 

I took the morning train out to Soro to spend an hour or 
two with Madame Ingemann. She looked unwontedly bright, 
and felt strengthened, she told me, by a delightful dream which 
God hath sent her the night before. She had seen Ingemann 
looking so young and beautiful and exceedingly happy, and 
then they had talked with one another. Her eyes shone as she 
spoke of it. All in the room, for the rest, was as of old : it was 
as if Ingemann had gone out only for a walk and every mo- 
ment be might come home again. She talked to me of the 
forthcoming edition of his writings, his biography from the 
time of his student life, which I had prepared for one vol- 
ume. She asked my advice in one thing and another, but 
when we talked of the days when they had their life together, 
the tears would come into her eyes. 

I went to the church-yard. Just at the entrance was a grave 
where upon the stone was written a name well known in Danish 
literature — Christian Molbech. In " The Story of my Life " 
I have spoken of him ; he was severe in his ju'dgment of my 
books and also of the Ingemann romances. Time changed 
all that bitterness, and we have come to understand each 
other. A little incident which Ingemann told me came into 
my mind. Shortly after Molbech's death, Ingemann went out 
in the evening in Soro, going home slowly after some company 
The church-door was open and in the doorway stood the priest 
Zeiithen, in full priestly dress. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 475 

" I am waiting," said he, "for the funeral of old Molbech ; 
it is to come in a few minutes to the church." Just then came 
along an ammunition wagon, and two young men clad in their 
capes followed \ they were Molbech's sons. The coffin was 
borne into the church • Zeiithen and Ingemann followed after 
the sons \ that was all the procession. Zeiithen spoke a few 
words over the coffin, and Ingemann was glad that he was 
there. With the same feeling I now stood here, and so I made 
my only visit to the church-yard where Ingemann's grave was. 
On the stone is his medallion portrait. One often sees, they 
say, little children lift one another up to kiss the poet's mouth : 
a painter might make a pretty picture from this incident. 

From Corsor began my journey with Jonas Collin. We 
were to take the route that lay by Flensborg, because the next 
day, July 25th, the monument over the fallen soldiers was to be 
dedicated in the cemetery ■ it was the celebrated lion done by 
Bissen. There was a great gathering of men under waving 
Dannebrog flags. I had earlier visited the graves of the fallen 
heroes. These had now been made level, but no boundaries 
disturbed. A great mound had been raised in the centre, 
and a memorial stone bore the names of the fallen ; here also 
stood Bissen's lion, not yet unveiled. I took my place among 
the grave-stones. Students from the Danish high-school were 
collected and sang a song. The weather was fine, the sun 
shone, but it almost blew a gale. It was for me as if the de- 
parted souls were sighing in the tree-tops. Twenty-five guns 
were fired, the veil fell, and the lion stood uncovered, looking 
out over the graves. What if an enemy were ever seen here 
by us — was the thought that suddenly passed through my 
mind. 

We approached Brunnen by Frankfort, and there we were to 
meet Collin's parents and sister, who were staying here on their 
way to Italy. At the Lake of Lucerne we were overtaken by 
one of those mighty Swiss storms. Kfohn came down from 
the mountains and lashed the lake into great waves. The 
captain could not bring the boat to her wharf, the breakers 
dashed over the side, and so a strong boat rowed by several 
men came out to take us to land, a little way from the town, 
where a river emptied into the lake and there was a little har- 



4/6 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

bor. But before we could reach it we had quite a long pas- 
sage to make where the breakers were tumbling. The water 
dashed upon the shore, and we did not dare approach till we 
were just opposite the mouth of the river ; then we came 
nearer and nearer, till we were on the breakers, where the men 
plied their oars, which creaked and bent, but in a moment after- 
ward we were in still water in the river, and received by 
friends, acquaintances, and strangers. 

Days hot as African ones afflicted the usually fresh and 
pretty Brunnen. Auf der Mauer had given up his hotel to a 
stranger, and was living with his sister in a pleasant place near 
the town. I heard Agatha sing again ; her brother and Father 
Gall-Mosel, the librarian from Einsiedeln, accompanied her. 

With Collin's family we took the route over the Brunnen 
Pass to Interlaken. As we ro.se, the air became fresher and 
the fields were green as in early spring. Giessbach was visited 
and the glacier at Grindelwald. 

In Berne there was living an ecclesiastic who was a son of 
the Danish poet Baggesen and Sophie Haller, daughter of the 
Swiss poet. Every time I have travelled through Berne I 
have been wont to visit the friendly old man, who has great 
sympathy for Denmark, though he cannot speak the Danish 
language in which his father sang his beautiful and' his witty 
-songs. Our longest stay in Switzerland was, however, to be at 
Montreux. The beauty of nature thereabout I have recorded 
in a poem, or rather a letter to the poet Christian Winther at 
Copenhagen, who intended to bring out a New Year's annual 
from the Danish writers, and wished a contribution from me 
also. 

Montreux, August 30, 1862. 

A poem askest thou ? I've none to give, 

Else would I send my very best. 

Here in Montreux the laurel grows, but poems — none ; 

The last was Byron's — Byron's on Chillon. 

Nature herself is here the poem, 

And in my heart she rhymes anew. 

I cannot paint the evening on the lake, 

Where the water shimmers in purple and blue — 

An airy rose-leaf with the sky for a gold ground. 

Like mighty choral seats in church, 

The crags rise high, crags upon crags, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 477 

With wooded slopes for drapery ; 

And far away the highest towers 

A mount 1 with lasting snow for altar cloth. 

Here is a peace, an evening charm, 

A color play no painter gives. 

And yet for all this splendid show 

My harp hangs voiceless and unstrung, 

Nor can the upland air awake its tones ; 

Vain is my heart's touch on its strings ; 

They lie as though in slumber deep, 

Sleeping to gather strength for sounding forth 

With mightier voice and newer tones. 

When I shall enter soon the glorious land, 

Where glowing pomegranates shine midst laurel leaves, 

Growing in wildness 'neath the Southern sun, — 

That land of the Cid, Cervantes's father -land, — 

There pray I God to grant poetic grace 

That shall awake the silent strings 

And carry music home to our green isles, 

Where the beech casts its shade over giant graves ; 

Fata Morgana from the garden of Granada. 

Spain was our destination. As soon as we entered French 
territory, Jonas Collin and I separated from his parents and 
sister, who went by Chambery to Italy; we by Lyons, Nismes, 
and Narbonne to Spain. On the sixth of September, the very 
day when I first came to Copenhagen, the first also that I 
came to Italy, on this day was I to enter Spain also. I had 
not so arranged it; circumstances had ordered it should be so, 
and so the sixth of September has become one of the white 
days of my life. 

What I saw, felt, and experienced I have written under the 
title " In Spain," and here I give only a few short notes. From 
Gerona we went slowly by rail in the evening to Barcelona, with 
its glittering cafes that quite outdo anything of the kind that 
Paris has to show. The great Inquisition house stood looking 
grimly; the monasteries, as everywhere in Spain, have been 
changed into warehouses or hospitals. I saw for the first time 
a bull-fight, not bloody, however, as afterward I saw in the 
South, where the bull thrust his sharp horns into the belly of 
a horse and ripped it up so that the entrails rushed out — a 
sight that made me faint. In Barcelona I was witness to the 
1 Dent de Midi. 



4/8 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

tremendous power of a rain storm ; the mountain streams 
swelled into tearing floods that broke down every boundary, 
and washed over railway and highway, and swelled through 
the town gates over Barcelona's principal street with whirls of 
water that filled the houses ; in the churches the priests stood 
up to their waists in water singing the mass. 

For more than a mile out to sea I saw the water of a coffee 
color from the freshets that poured in. In delightful sunny 
weather we went by steamer over the quiet sea to Grao, a 
suburb of Valencia. We were as in a great orchard. The 
whole plain about Valencia was fragrant and beautiful with 
groves of lemon and apple-trees \ crowded vineyards too, with 
rich bunches of grapes, flourished here in the warm, ruddy 
earth. A few days' stay here, and the same in Alicante, and 
we travelled to the palm-tree town, the high, romantic Elche, 
where we saw for the first time the gypsy folk as they live in 
Spain, and as they appear in the neighborhood of Murcia. 

It was the last of September, and the sun still burned as if 
it would have the grain all thoroughly cooked. In Cartagena, 
whence we were to go tiy steamer to Malaga, there was no re- 
lief ; the air was red-hot, the wind was red-hot ; the rain that 
we had to mingle these was gentle, lukewarm rain ; all nature 
and mankind were beautiful indeed — and red-hot. My bal- 
cony overhung the narrow street, so near the neighboring 
houses that the nearest one touched it, and I involuntarily 
looked straight into it, and immediately put what I saw into 
song. 

The night before we were to take the steamer to Malaga, 
there blew such a gale that the trees were torn up by the roots. 
I felt a good deal of concern about the passage, but the steam- 
er's departure and arrival were fixed things, and I had no 
choice, so I went on board with Collin. Indeed I am Fortune's 
child, and this I said before we left port ; for the waves subsided, 
the sea was as quiet as a piece of silk, and so in the most de- 
lightful night we slipped over the bright water, and in the 
early morning came in sight of Malaga, with its white houses, 
its great cathedral, and its lofty Gibraltar, once the Moors' 
fastness. 

In towns that lie by the sea-side I always feel myself at once 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 479 

at home, and how much here filled and possessed my mind ! — 
the sweet Moorish memories, the eternally youthful, charming 
country, and all the beauty of the Andalusian women. We 
can be transported at a grand statue, a lovely picture • how 
much more then at that picture in womanhood which comes 
straight from God. I was amazed, and stopped in the street 
to look at these royally moving daughters of beauty, their 
eyes shining beneath the long black eyelashes, their delicate 
hands playing gracefully with the fan. It was beauty from 
God shown in humanity — a fairer thing to see than statue or 
picture. 

One day our Danish Consul took Collin and myself out to 
the Protestant burial-ground at Malaga : it was a paradisi- 
acal spot. I would not, however, have mentioned this visit 
again, were it not that the sketch which I gave of it in my 
book, " In Spain," called forth a singular correction. I wrote, 
" In the centre of all this vegetation was a neat small house, 
within which refreshments were to be had ; pretty children 
with laughing eyes were playing there." 

It was for this passage, after my book was published and 
translated into English, that I received a setting right that as- 
tonished me exceedingly. A lady in London had read the 
book, and felt herself disagreably affected by the rather incor- 
rect translation of " Refreshments were to be had within : " 
she had written to a relative in Malaga for an explanation 
of it ; the person written to addressed himself to one of the 
gentlemen whom I had known ; and he in turn applied to 
the Danish Consul, who spoke to the family in the pretty 
little house at the cemetery, and asked if any one here had for 
pay furnished refreshments to a stranger ■ and when it appeared 
that none had been thus sold, I was bidden to strike out in the 
next edition of my book, " In Spain," what I had before written, 
"Refreshments were to be had within." The words flowed 
from my pen \ I had no thought of these being an offense to 
any one. 

I remember distinctly that visit to the cemetery. The air 
was warm ; I was tired and thirsty, and asked our guide, there- 
fore, if it were not possible to get something here to refresh 
one \ he took me into the little house, and the kind man there 



480 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

gave me fruit or ice-water, I forget which, but it certainly was 
not paid for. I ought to have added that in my book and so 
not have scandalized the pious lady, nor, what concerns me 
more, have caused the good man who had compassion on me 
to be annoyed by an investigation into this thing. 

Collin and I spent a week in Malaga, from which place we 
desired to go back again to Gibraltar ■ but first Granada was 
to be visited, where people had made great preparation to re- 
ceive the Queen, who was entering Andalusia for the first time. 

Granada with its Alhambra was to be the bright spot in our 
Spanish journey. The evening came ; we sat in the diligence 
drawn by ten mules with jingling bells ; the whip cracked, we 
started off by the Alameda, along the bed of a stream and up 
the heights, from which we looked off on to Malaga, shining 
with its many lights. The air became heavy, sharp lightning 
flashed, and just then a couple of armed men looked into the 
coach. I thought at once of an attack, but it was only our 
guard against highwaymen, — gens d'armes who saw us safely 
over the dangerous parts of the road. Passing by Loja we 
came the next forenoon to Granada, where we had previously 
engaged apartments. 

From my countryman in Barcelona, Herr Schierbach, I 
brought a letter to his Spanish brother-in-law, Colonel Don 
Jose Laramendi, a lively, amiable man, unwearied in his atten- 
tions to Collin and myself. We went with him to see and study 
beautiful and interesting things, which otherwise we should 
never have been allowed to see. The Alhambra received our 
first attention ; but we came at an unfortunate time, for the vel- 
vet trappings and tasteless decoration hung there, on the occa- 
sion of the Queen's near visit, made it lose its peculiar beauty. 

The ninth of October the Queen made her entrance into 
Granada, and never since the time of Isabella I. had there 
been here any such affair \ for six nights and 'days Granada 
was indeed a fairy town. The church-bells rang ; dancing girls, 
with castanets and curious instruments, went dancing through 
the streets ; bands of music played everywhere ; the banners 
waved : " Long live the Queen ! " Roses were torn leaf from 
leaf and fell from the balconies like a shower of flowers over 
the Queen, who could be told for a queen right away by every 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 48 I 

child, for she wore a gold crown and was dressed in purple. 
In the evening and night it was as if there hung over the 
streets a cloud of variegated humming-birds. 

After the Queen's departure to Malaga, and the festivities 
were over, Collin and I moved our quarters to the Alhambra, 
in the " Fonda de los siete Suebos," which is close by the walls 
of the Alhambra, hard by the walled-up gate through which 
the Moorish king Boabdil rode out to do battle against Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, who conquered him and drove him out with 
his Moorish people. 

I read Washington Irving's " Alhambra " here for the third 
time : the dead became living ; the departed came again. I 
could every day visit the Moorish halls, and wander in the Sul- 
tan's court. There was a scent of roses here, like a poem 
strayed from those old times : the clear water fell with the same 
rush and roar, the ancient mighty cypresses, dumb witnesses 
to the voice of speech and song, stood with fresh green leaves 
in the sunlit air which I was breathing. 

Through tears, as when I first left Rome, I took my leave 
of the Alhambra, where I had been happy, and where I had 
felt a profound melancholy, passing through many swingings 
to and fro in my soul, feeling myself afflicted and grieved, at 
what? — Yes, these very memories are now leaving me: it is 
good to forget, better often than to remember, yet best of all 
to come to a true understanding. 

I marked my departure by these words : — 

ALHAMBRA. 

Like an iEolian harp broken in two, 
But hanging still on Darro's hilly banks, 
I see thee rich in ornament and grace, 
Alhambra ! though thy greatest beauty lies 
In the soul-stirring memories of the past. 
What tones still issue from thy fragile strings ? 
Sweet tones of love, mingling with warlike sounds, 
Clashing of swords that to siroccos swell. 
Ah ! broken is that harp, but still it hangs 
Yonder, amidst the weeping cypresses, — 
It is Alhambra ; glorious in decay. 

When we came to leave, our countryman, Visby, and Colonel 
31 



482 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Laramendi were on hand to bid us good-by, and my little 
friends, Laramendi's children, were also there to cry, " Adois ! 
Vaya usted con dois ! " 

Again we were in Malaga, and when I was putting my 
things in order for leaving, I met with a strange misfortune. 
I carried with me my decorations of order in miniature, and 
among them one North Star, the one that Oehlenschlager had 
worn, and once when I was much cast down by a too severe 
criticism, had given me with the most sympathetic and conn- 
dent words, " The north star never goes out : you shall have 
mine when I am called away." Now it was stolen from me ; all 
.my orders were taken, and I did not recover them, though I 
advertised both in the Malaga and in the Granada journals. 

In the evening, Collin and I went on board our steamer ; at 
daybreak we saw the Gibraltar rock, and soon we were on 
English ground, in a good hotel, where the Danish Consul, 
Mathiesen, had already engaged rooms for us. Here, with 
him, we spent a few delightful days, visited the impregnable 
fortress, mounted the highest point of the rock, and saw thence 
to the west TenerirTe, Europe's most southern point, and south 
of that Ceuta, on the African coast. 

On the second of November, a beautiful sunny day, the 
sea rolled in from the Atlantic, and Collin and I went over to 
Tangier, where the English minister resident, Drummond Hay, 
who had married a Danish lady, had given us a cordial invi- 
tation to his house. My letter announcing our coming had 
been given several days before to a fisherman, but it had not 
yet reached them when we got there, — strangers in a strange 
town, in a new part of the world. We went, meanwhile, 
through the narrow streets, full of people, to the minister's 
hotel. The whole family was in the country, a few miles from 
Tangier, at their country-seat, Ravensrock. 

The Secretary of the embassy was fortunately at the Lega- 
tion, and he quickly provided horses for us, and mules to carry 
our luggage, and so, quite a caravan, we drove through the 
town's narrow main street, which was full of Moorish Jews, 
Arabs, beggar women, and naked children. Out beyond the 
fortified part we came suddenly upon a whole encampment of 
Bedouin Arabs and their camels. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 483 

Passing through a wild open country we reached Ravensrock, 
a strong castle in the midst of green fields. Drummond Hay, 
his wife, and daughter, received us most heartily ; the Danish 
tongue was heard, and all was sunshine and delight about us. 
From my room I looked out over Tangier to blue mountains. 
I could see over to Europe, caught sight of Gibraltar's rock, 
the town of Teneriffe, and in the evening, Trafalgar's Light. 

There was a loneliness here, and yet a strong life in nature by 
the rolling ocean. We wished to know something, also, of the 
town life ; and therefore the whole family, a week later, moved 
back with us to their great, well-ordered residence in Tangier. 

Sir Drummond Hay introduced us to the Pasha, who re- 
ceived us in a friendly manner in the paved court of the castle, 
which reminded us of the Alhambra. Tea was brought \ we 
each had two great cups of it, and would have had a third, but 
I prevented it by saying that it was against our religion to 
drink three cups, and so we got off. The Pasha accompanied 
us afterward to the castle's outer gate, where he shook hands 
with us with much cordiality. 

In Drummond Hay's house we found English comfort : it 
was cozy and well-ordered, and most charming in its amiable 
inmates. From the balcony of the house one looked out over 
oleander shrubs and palm-trees quite to the Mediterranean. 
The time passed here all too quickly. 

A French war steamer was expected from Algiers, and we 
were to go by this to Cadiz. It was hard to say farewell to 
the dear friends in this charming African home ; the visit here 
was quite the most interesting part of the whole journey. 

At sunset we went on board. In the middle of the night, 
when we lay sound asleep, the vessel struck on a sand bank in 
the bay of Trafalgar. I hurried upon deck ; the vessel lay as 
if on one side. My fancy painted the greatest peril, but it 
was scarcely a quarter of an hour before the ship righted it- 
self, and we slipped over the rolling sea in the clear moon- 
light. When the sun rose, we cast anchor in the roads 
before Cadiz, the town of towns for neatness. Flags were 
flying, and in the harbor lay ships of all nations : it was a 
pretty sight that burst on us. For the rest there is not much 
to see here, — no notable churches, or ruins, or galleries. The 



4 8 4 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



romantic one must look for in the view out over the sea, and 
in Andalusian eyes that shine in the mantled beauties that 
walk the Alameda. 

. The railway by Xeres de la Frontera runs to Seville, one of 
the most romantic of Spanish towns, adorned with beautiful 
churches and immortal pictures. The memories of olden 
times and great names were linked with this place. Every 
day we visited the majestic cathedral where is the Moorish 
bell-tower La Giralda, the highest in the land. Troen stands 
winged, shining in the sunlight. We visit the castle of the 
Moorish king, the gay Alcazar, that gleams with gold and col- 
ors as in its time of splendor. The garden was rilled with 
oranges and roses : the summer of the south had still a place 
here. In Murillo's native town, in the presence of a wealth 
of his beautiful pictures, it came over me how great he was ; 
yes, often I exclaimed, " He is the greatest of them all ! " 
One must travel to Spain, especially to Seville and Madrid, to 
see what he has put upon canvas. 

With the well known genre painter John Phillips, who is 
now dead, and the Swedish painter Lundgreen, we saw for the 
first time the Murillo Hall, which includes in the Academy of 
Art at Seville the richest display of his glories. We saw next 
his beautiful painting of " Moses in the Bulrushes," which is 
found in the church La Caridad, next the monastery, which 
now is a hospital for old and infirm men, established by Don 
Juan Tenorio, who died a monk here in the monastery and 
wrote 'his own epitaph : — 

" Here lies the worst man in the world." 

The story of Don Juan Tenorio was for the first time dram- 
atized by the Spanish poet Tirso de Molina : his piece was 
used by Moliere, and written again as a text for Mozart, to be 
carried by immortal music through time and generations. 

We came after some hours by rail to Cordova, once a prin- 
cipal seat of the Moors, where, when the manufacture of cor- 
dovan 1 was in full activity, an academy of music flourished. 
The most elaborate of Moorish mosques is here, possessing 
relics of the Prophet himself ; now it is a quiet, deserted town, 
1 A peculiarly dressed leather made in Cordova. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 485 

where the spirit of desolation seems to have spread a wide 
robe of forgetfulness over so much grandeur. The grand 
mosque of Cordova, now a Christian church, is the only splen- 
dor of Cordova. A thousand and eight marble pillars support 
the roof; it is like a plantation of pillars to look upon, and 
in the midst rises a richly gilt church, where the great hymn 
resounds in honor of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, between 
walls that bear on their arches in Arab characters, " There is 
only one God and Mohammed is his prophet.'' 

From Cordova to Madrid the larger part of the railroad 
was not yet finished and we must again try how uneasy we 
could be in a Spanish diligence. At evening we came to 
Andugas, and later in the night to the German colony Caro- 
lina, around which the country was of a wild beauty. Sierra 
Morena afforded us great variety and delight. Here, too, in 
this outlawed land, where every other tourist tells of robbers, 
attacks, and murders, I was in good fortune : I believe that if 
I had travelled with an open pocket-book in my hands, not a 
soul we met would have given any trouble. Shanty towns 
thatched with cactus had sprung up along the route of the 
railway on which the men were working ; here at least was life 
and bustle. 

After about four or five hours' wild riding we came to the 
little place Santa Cruz de Mudela, a town with poor, mean 
houses, the streets unpaved and covered with an offensive 
mire. The fonda near the station, which had been recom- 
mended to us, was a great filthy tavern with straw strewn on 
the floor ; the sleeping chambers had no panes of glass in the 
windows, but wooden shutters. Tired as I was, I would not 
stop here. The train to Madrid was to start immediately, and 
after ten hours' journey we came at midnight, quite worn out, 
to Madrid, where in the w r ell known plaza Puerta del Sol we 
found a good hotel, " Fonda del Oriente," where we got good 
meals and wine from the blushing hostess, good beds and good 
rest. It was cold here, snow was falling, and the town gave 
me little pleasure. There was nothing characteristically Span- 
ish, and no great memorials of the Moorish times. Still one 
thing gives Madrid a preeminence among capitals, — its splen- 
did gallery of paintings of Europe's greatest masters, especially 



486 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

the works of Murillo and Velasquez. Here I spent hours, 
— most happy hours ; and that we might refresh our Spanish 
memories and see the peculiar Spanish nature, Collin and I 
spent a few days in a journey to the picturesque, interesting 
Toledo. The road led by orange groves, which reminded us 
of Danish nature and wooded shades. Toledo makes the im- 
pression of a great memorable ruin, and is surrounded by 
naked crags, where the Tagus, in a succession of falls, rushes 
down and turns little water-wheels that are very picturesque. 
The Alcazar, with its proud colonnade and ruined arches, 
makes a great impression on one, as it rises royally over the 
waste about it, still keeping some of its ancient glory. One 
wing only of the castle remains habitable. The soldiers of the 
Cordova regiment are quartered there. 

The cathedral and the church of San Juan de los Reges, 
ah ! that is a Spanish church to see ! even after one has seen 
the cathedrals of Malaga, Seville, and Cordova. With a 
glory like that of Solomon, but buried and hemmed in, stand 
the two Jewish synagogues, now christened by the names of 
Nuestra Senora del Transito and Santa Maria la Blanca. In 
the artistic decoration of the walls there is inwoven in a 
broidered scroll the words in Hebrew : " Solomon's temples 
stand here still, but Israel's people are departed, — the peo- 
ple that keep the law. There is one only true God." 

It is lonely and quiet here in the town, and still more in all 
the surrounding country ; there are only three signs of life : 
the sound of the church-bell calling to mass, the beating of 
the hammer in the making of Damascus blades, the only re- 
maining memory of old times, and now the locomotive, — 

Which comes and blows its blast ; 

Then stillness reigns again, 

And all about is waste and bigness. 

In Madrid, where we went again to stay some weeks, per- 
haps through Christmas, the author Don Sanibaldo de Mas, 
formerly Spanish Ambassador to China, arranged in one of 
the Madrid hotels a reception for me, where I might become 
acquainted with some of the writers of the day. I met here 
Don Rahael Garcia y Santesteban, author of " El Romo de 
Artigas," and several zarquellas. I found in the capital of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 487 

Spain several eminent men who came cordially and apprecia- 
tively to me, while they knew but little of my writings \ the 
only ones that had been translated were " The Match Girl " 
and " Holger the Dane." I became warmly attached to the 
poet Hartzenbusch, of German extraction but of Spanish birth, 

— a well known dramatist and writer of wonder stories 5 his 
" Quantos y Fabulas " were upon every one's tongue : people 
were so polite as to say we resembled one another in our writ- 
ings. He came most kindly to me, and wrote generous words 
in the copy of his " Quinlar y Fabulas," which he gave me as 
a souvenir. One other name, noted in Spanish politics and 
in recent literature, I may mention, the Duke of Rivas ; I was 
taken to see him and was well received. We were old ac- 
quaintances, he reminded me, for we had met before at Naples 
when he was ambassador there. 

I did not remain in Madrid over Christmas. The climate 
was intolerable. There was rain, snow, and cold as severe as 
in Denmark at the same time of year. Occasionally there 
came a change of temperature, but it was a wind that was dry 
and piercing, irritating the nerves, and not to be endured. I 
made up my mind to go north into France, and so toward 
Denmark ; but on my departure in the cold evening when the 
snow fell, I became very warm at heart on seeing in the cold 
waiting hall so many who had shown good-will toward me, 
and who were dear to me, I found, when we came to separate, 

— his excellency, the venerable Swedish Minister Bergmann, 
several young Spanish poets, and one of the most affectionate 
and unwearied during my stay here in his attentions to me, 
Jacobo Zobel Zangroniz, from Manilla. I offer him here, 
should he ever see this writing, my greeting and thanks. 

The train went rushing away in the storm. The wind 
howled and a snow-storm broke over us at the Escurial, and 
here already the train stopped. We were crowded into a dili- 
gence and obliged to ride in that till the morning. A fellow- 
traveller ran his elbow through the window pane, the snow 
blew in, a child kept up a steady crying, the vehicle was 
always on the point of upsetting, there was no thinking of 
sleeping or resting, we only thought of broken arms and bones. 

At San Chidrian we again came to the railroad, but the 



488 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

first train did not go for several hours after our arrival, and 
all that time we had to wait, sitting in a cold, ill-appointed 
station. At last the hour struck, and at noon we were in 
Burgos, where Spain's hero, the much sung Cid, lived, and 
where he and his noble wife Ximene rested in the Benedic- 
tine monastery San Pedro de Cardofia. We saw in the ca- 
thedral the chest filled with stones, with which he deceived 
the Jews, a very characteristic relic of that time, but held in 
little honor now. 

Collin and I stayed here in Fonde del Rafaello ; it was a 
hard, severe winter. The window panes were covered with 
frost, snow lay on the ground, and we were furnished with an 
iron pot filled with burning charcoal, to keep us warm. We 
put this outside the door before we went to bed, but the door 
hung so loosely by its hinges that there were wide cracks, and 
the fumes came in so that I was awakened in the night by 
the sensation of a nightmare which arose from the smoke • it 
was as if I had a hood tightly pulled down over my head. I 
called out to Jonas Collin ; he answered strangely as if dream- 
ing. I repeated " I am sick." He did not answer at all, and 
I sprang out of bed, staggering, got the balcony door open, 
and a blast of wind sent a drift of snow on me. It was an 
hour in that cold air before Collin and I fairly came to our 
senses ; that night in Burgos came near being our last on 
earth. 

From Burgos there was a railway to Olozagoitis where we 
again took the diligence. The snow lay all about us, the 
night was dark, and by daylight we crossed the Pyrenees to 
St. Sebastian, which lies picturesquely placed on the Basque 
bay. It was winter here, but when some hours later we came 
near the French boundary, the sun shone out, spring had come, 
the trees had buds, the violets were blooming. We came soon 
to Bayonne and spent our Christmas here ; a small wax can- 
dle stuck in a champagne bottle was lighted for a Christmas 
light, and healths were drunk for Denmark and all our dear 
ones. 

The famous watering-place, Biarritz, on the Bay of Biscay, 
lies, as is known, very near Bayonne ; here we spent several 
days, and from the heights we could see the snow covered 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 489 

mountains of Spain. The breaking of the sea upon the rocky 
coast resounded like the firing of cannon. The sea spirted 
like great whales over the projecting rocks, that lay like bask- 
ing seals. The eye looks out over the waters of the world's 
ocean, whose nearest shore is America. New Year's Eve we 
were in Bordeaux, where countrymen of ours and French 
friends welcomed us heartily. 

1863. 

Bordeaux pleased me greatly \ I felt myself specially at- 
tracted by the theatre, where the opera was in full flower. 
There for the first time I heard Gounod's " Faust," and I re- 
peated my visits. There were voices ! and dramatic song and 
fine decorations ! I have forgotten the names of the singers, 
but not the strong impression they made on me, nor my vex-' 
ation over the otherwise charming actress of Margaret's part, 
to see how thoughtless an actress sometimes can be. In the 
third act, where Margaret in a maidenly and pious way, with 
her psalm-book in her hand, comes home from church, she 
takes out her spinning and sits and sings the ballad of the 
" King of Thule " : Margaret seated herself, but as she had no 
longer any use for her psalm-book, she tossed it like an old 
rag behind the side scenes, as Margaret in reality, or, so to 
speak, in the kingdom of beauty, certainly would not have han- 
dled the church book. Every time I heard " Faust " this hap- 
pened, and it was only after hearing more music and real 
acting that I could again enter into this character. 

The cathedral was visited, the remains of the Roman am- 
phitheatre, the old foundations of the town. The weather be- 
gan to be warm and fine, violets in great multitude were out 
in the meadows, the fruit-trees were in blossom. Our Danish 
Consul took us to a pretty villa out in the country close by the 
river side. Here we saw fresh young spring as if it were ready 
to follow us on our journey northward. 

In Angouleme we stopped for a day, but stayed longer at 
Poictiers, where Collin had a friend : he took us about the town, 
which stands high and has a noble cathedral which dates back 
to the time of the Moors : here are also some very old builds 
ings, and not less than two-and-thirty monasteries. 



490 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

The weather meanwhile was not more spring-like than in 
Bordeaux. We were forced again to hear the wood crackle in 
the fire-place. Some little turtles which Collin brought from 
Tangier were as cold as we were, and we shoved them up to 
the fire till they were nearly burnt. 

From old Poictiers we came to the pretty town of Tours, with 
its immense suspension bridge and great cathedral, its broad 
streets and gay shops ; here was spring again, and sunshine? 
flowers, and green things. We went to see the old house 
where Louis XL's infamous executioner, Tristan the Hermit, 
had lived. The garden was adorned with decorations and in- 
scriptions ; from the tower one looks over town and river far 
into the country. A part of the churches lie in ruins, single 
ones being put to profane use, — as one for a stable, another 
for a theatre. 

From Tours our journey led to Blois : every town, like every 
man, has its own countenance ; they have a common likeness 
and yet are different ; one keeps in his mind all their peculiar 
touches ; so it is with me as regards the towns of Southern 
France ; they are like little vignettes of my journey \ and not the 
least vivid is my recollection thus of Blois, with its crooked nar- 
row streets and the shaded promenade by the bank of the river. 
I remember well wandering up to the cathedral, where the street 
rises so steeply that they have had a parapet made for one to 
hold on by as one climbs up. Never shall I forget the old 
castle turned now into barracks, but well preserved too. The 
whole building, and the memories that cluster about it, make 
an impression upon one that calls up dark mysteries. The 
red-painted open balcony arches before every window seem 
like mouths one has run a tongue out of so as not to tell what 
has been done there inside. Here was the Duke of Guise 
murdered ; we saw the apartment, and the hole in the tapes- 
try through which Henry was an eye-witness. 

Two days were spent in Orleans, a time all too short for see- 
ing its beautiful buildings and monuments. There is a monu- 
ment to Jeanne d'Arc in the square Napoleon III., full of 
beauty and poetic thought. She is represented on horseback, 
and round about on a pedestal are large bronze bas-reliefs, 
which contain representations quite close to the conception in 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 49 1 

Schiller's tragedy ; from where, watching her sheep, she saw 
the Virgin reveal herself, to that last moment where she stands 
in flames at the stake. A lesser statue, modeled by King 
Louis Philippe's daughter Maria, and presented to the town, 
has a place in the town hall garden ; we saw also on the bank 
of the river an older statue erected to Jeanne d'Arc. We 
saw the house she lived in, and Diana of Poictiers's residence, 
and the splendid mansion which Charles VII. had built for his 
beloved Agnes Sorel. 

From Orleans one soon comes to Paris, where we were now 
to stay two months, the first in the year, the most full of en- 
joyment to strangers, where many have more pleasure than 
they could wish for. It was not the first time in my life that 
it had been granted me to be here, and I would enjoy this 
sunshine of life, and I enjoyed it as I had before enjoyed the 
whole romantic journey through Spain to Africa's coast and 
back ; great pleasurable pictures of memory were granted me, 
but the days and months are not all made of silk, and every 
day's life has its rough prickling yarn. There is an old saying, 
" Men are not so good as they ought to be ! " and I belong to 
the ranks of men. " Forgive us as we forgive our debtors " 
— that's in the Lord's Prayer. 

Bjornstjerne Bjornson was in Paris, on his way home from 
Italy. At his suggestion, the Scandinavians made a pleasant 
feast for me at a restaurant in the Palais Royal. The table was 
adorned with flowers, and at the lower end of the hall was ar- 
ranged a large picture representing H. C. Andersen surrounded 
by his " Wonder Stories." " The Angel " floated above ; " The 
Wild Swans " flew past ; here was " Thumbling," here " The 
Butterfly," "The Neighboring Families," "The Little Sea- 
maid," " The Constant Tin Soldier," — not one was wanting of 
the mice that told of " Soup made of a Sausage-stick." 

Bjornson made a hearty speech, and in his kind feeling 
toward me placed me beside Baggesen, Vessel, and Heiberg in 
popular wit and satire. I replied that it was to me as if I 
were dead and lay in my coffin, and people were saying over 
me the prettiest and best things they could think of, and every- 
thing was put in the strongest light ; but I was not dead. I 
hoped there was still some future remaining to me, and I heart* 



49 2 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ily wished it might be given to me to make good all that they 
had been saying. 

A Swedish song was now sung, and then was read a letter 
to H. C. Andersen from the poet P. L. Moller, who had lived 
for several years in Paris, but was prevented by sickness from 
taking part in the festival. I read for my friends a few of 
my Wonder Stories : " The Wind tells of Waldemar Daae," 
" It is certainly true," and " Children's Prattle." There was 
most hearty and happy accord, and I look back upon it as one 
of the bright evenings of my life. 

Late in March I left Paris, and our journey home lay by 
Diisseldorf, where some pleasant days were spent with the 
Norwegian painter Tidemand, in whose studio there then 
stood partly finished his remarkable picture, " A Fght at a 
Feast in Norway." The knife ends the quarrel. One man 
lies stretched dead ; another, mortally wounded, is cursed by 
the grandmother of the dead man. It is a powerful picture, 
with masterly handling of the light; it streams from the fire, 
and from the dawn which comes through the open roof. 

On my birthday, the second of April, I was again in Copen- 
hagen, but soon the forest put forth its leaves, and I started 
out again to visit my friends at Christinelund, Basnos, and 
Glorup. At these places I wrote out from notes, which I 
brought home from my journey, the book " In Spain." Nearly 
all of June I was at the delightful manor-house, Glorup, with 
Count Moltke Hvitfeldt, where I always had found a home. 
The garden had been, as it were, transformed in beauty since I 
was last here ; the old French part had been beautified with a 
fountain, which cast its bright jets up among the great trees ; 
the newer part had been turned into an English park, with 
lawns and fine groups of trees. 

At the close of August I was again back in my little room 
in Copenhagen. They gave at the Casino my comedy, " Elder 
Mother." The talented young Carl Price played very nat- 
urally and pleasantly the simple minded young lover's part, 
sang delightfully the little songs. He and the piece were re- 
ceived with great applause, and from that time it became 
one of the little pieces which are regularly seen with great 
acceptance, much more than at the first representation. I 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



493 



have before spoken of the time when it was only poets like 
Heiberg, Boye, and # Thiele who then felt the worth of the 
piece, not the critics. What a change now ! I wrote this au- 
tumn for the Royal Theatre the play, " He is not well born/' 
and for the Casino Theatre, " On Long Bridge." 

I had, in turning over the pages of Kotzebue's dramatic 
works, found a drama I did not know : it was written after the 
well known pretty tale, u Still Love/' of Musaeus. I took this 
piece and let it tell its story as Musaeus gives it, but gave it 
in my mind a very Danish action. Bremen Bridge is Copen- 
hagen's Long Bridge. The whole story was very home-like ; 
songs were introduced, and I had a good deal of pleasure from 
it. All was happiness and sunshine ; but now was coming a 
tempest ; dark days were at hand, and a heavy, bitter time. 
The storm burst, not over me alone but over land and king- 
dom, for now came Denmark's time of trial. 

King Frederick VII.*made his residence in Sleswick, at the 
castle of Gliicksborg : there came alarming rumors of the state 
of his health. It was Monday, the fifteenth of November. I 
was with the Minister of Public Worship, Bishop Monrad, who 
was plainly uneasy. The weather was raw and gloomy. The 
damp air oppressed me ; I seemed to myself to be in a house 
of mourning. I thought of the King and felt troubled, and 
when a few hours afterward I went to see some friends in the 
house where the Minister Fenger lived, I met the telegraph 
director, who himself brought the dispatch. I waited anx- 
iously on the steps until he came back, and asked if I might 
see what was written. He answered only, " We must be pre- 
pared for the worst." I went in to the Minister. He said to 
me, " The King is dead." I burst into tears. When I went out 
into the street the people stood in groups and showed the 
sorrowful news in their faces. I was overcome, and longed to 
see some friend, so I went to Edward Collin. Here people 
came in who had been at the theatre, but when the play was 
to begin, a voice was heard in the parterre saying that " When 
the King lies at the point of death, it was not proper to play 
comedies," and the public was bidden to go. The curtain 
soon rose, and the actor Phister stepped forward and said that 
it was very natural that people under these circumstances 



494 THE ST0RY OF MY LIFE. 

should have no pleasure in seeing comedies, and the actors 
certainly had no more pleasure in giving one. The play was 
therefore given up. 

In the Casino Theatre a couple of acts were played when the 
sorrowful news came of the King's death. A sob went through 
the house, and the people immediately went quietly out ; the 
play was broken off. 

The next forenoon the air was thick and heavy, as if in 
keeping, and I went out to Christiansborg Castle. The square 
was filled with men. The President of the Council, Hald, 
stepped out on a balcony of the castle and proclaimed " King 
Frederick VII. is dead. Long live King Christian IX." Hur- 
ras resounded all about. The King rose, and while the clamor 
continued he came forward again and again. From the happy 
family life, with its quiet and gladness, he was elevated now 
to the trial of dark days which God had willed should pass 
over us all. I felt sick in body and soul and quite cast down. 
In the evening I wrote : — 

Sad tidings through the Danish country sped : 

" King Frederick the Seventh, our Danish king, is dead ! " 

Sound the dirge over Thyra's mighty mound. 

On Danish shield his broken heart was found. 

God sent that heart to Danish land and folk, 

Nor any truer man the Danish language spoke. 

From heather plain to stormy coast, 

No man for Denmark greater love can boast ; 

Thou that hast kings' meaning spoke, 

Art blessed with love of common folk. 

Thanks for thy love, for all thy nature gave, 

And, giving thanks, we weep beside thy grave. 

In the evening of Wednesday, the second of December, the 
King's corpse came to Copenhagen. From my dwelling in 
Newhaven I saw the sarcophagus vessel glide quietly over the 
water to funereal music and the ringing of church-bells. The 
words " Castrum Doloris " were inscribed on the Christiansborg 
Castle ; people were streaming from there, and I was troubled 
for the crowds that had pushed on foot by foot, and were now 
so hemmed in that they could not escape until the whole 
procession was over. Alone with my thoughts, this tingled my 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 495 

nerves \ I could not go that way, and gave up going ; but when 
the time for admission was gone by, I was sorry that I had 
not been there. I felt that I must once more get near the 
good friendly King and stand by his coffin. It was granted 
me, and I got there with great ease. The lamps were still 
burning in the chamber of mourning. The workmen were 
taking away the last pieces of the catafalque and inscriptions : 
the white satin canopy still decorated the Hall of State, the 
lights were burning in the candelabra ; the escutcheons were 
in their place ; only the tabourets with orders and insignia were 
gone. I came just as the lid was lifted from the open coffin 
to make ready for the lowering of it. I saw the inner black 
wooden box lined with lead which inclosed the corpse ; I 
bowed myself over the coffin, the odor from which was so strong 
as to send me tqp the open window. In the room close by 
were laid wreaths from Sleswick \ I held in my hand the flower- 
less moss wreath which some poor people had brought. I 
saw garlands of Christ's - thorn from Flensborg — all these 
wreaths were to go into the king's grave. 

The Singing Union of Copenhagen were to give in chorus 
a farewell song to the departed king, when his dust was borne 
to Roeskilde, and I was charged with the writing of the words. 
The day of burial came ; the time was toward evening. The 
procession halted at the west gate while the song was sung ; 
the insignia of the corporations waved, the cannon flashed 
and boomed, the smoke swelled into little clouds that floated 
up toward the sun. Sorrow and grief held > our hearts and 
thoughts. 

The bloody waves of war were again to wash over our father- 
land. A kingdom and an empire stood united against our 
little country. A poet's way is not by politics ; he has his 
mission in the service of Beauty ; but when the ground trembles 
beneath him so that all threatens to fall at once, then has he 
only thought for this which is a matter of life and death : he 
does not stand on one side of occurrences, but knows full well 
their significance and has his serious thoughts concerning 
them. He is planted in his father-land as a tree ; there he 
brings forth his flowers and his fruit; and if they are sent 
widely through the w r orld, the roots of the tree are in the 






496 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

home soil and perceive what shapes that, what issues from it 
to death. 

The Duke of Augustenborg's eldest son appeared as laying 
claim to the dukedom of Holstein and the Danish dukedom 
of Sleswick. Germany was ready to maintain his right. The 
whole reading world saw that it would be for Denmark a 
heavy, bitter conflict. The Danish soldier is uniformly brave, 
fair, and honest. " The brave Johnnies," the soldiers are 
called in the popular tongue. A girl's " John," they say, is 
one who is marked as especially liked by women. With song 
and shout they moved away to protect Denmark at the Dan- 
nevirke, the old ramparts which Gorm the Old, Thyra Danne- 
bod, had raised a thousand years ago to shield our land against 
the German invasion. This time had passed, and now was to 
come the overwhelming might. In the early morning I was 
awakened several times by the song and tramp of the soldiers 
as they came from the barracks past my dwelling. I sprang 
out of bed, opened my window, and with moist eyes prayed God 
to bless and keep the young, joyous defenders. On one such 
occasion, deeply moved, I wrote, — 

A SONG OF TRUST. 

No mortal knows what to-morrow shall bring ; 
None knows or sees save God our King ; 
But when comes Denmark's darkest day, 
Then comes from God deliverance alway. 

When rent and racked the country lay, 
Niels Ebbesen's courage was her stay ; 
God led us in his own great way, 
And Denmark saw a brighter day. 

O'er the white capped waves the black winds sweep, 
Our vessel rocks on the stormy deep ; 
But God our Lord in the tumult stands, 
And, wiser than man, gives his commands. 

No mortal knows what to-morrow shall bring ; 
None knows or sees save God our King ; 
But when comes Denmark's darkest day, 
Then comes from God deliverance alway. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 497 

This was printed in the " Dagblad." The evening after, I 
received a letter signed " Only a Woman/' which read : — 

" If Herr Professor should again feel himself disposed to 
give the people faith respecting the impending campaign, it 
might be well to choose another form for inspiring our depart- 
ing brothers with, than to quiet them \ our present condition, 
as far as the eye can see, is like a stormy night, in which our 
little vessel puts out into the deep. The Danish warrior who 
goes away, glad and proud, to fight for our righteous cause, can- 
not understand that there is any occasion for gloomy thoughts 
over the present times/' 

I still believed in a deliverance from God, but sometimes 
was filled with anxiety, yet never have I more fervently felt 
how fast I clung to my native land. I did not forget how 
much affection, good fellowship, and courtesy I had met with 
in Germany, how many dear friends, men and women, I there 
had, but now a drawn sword was between us. I do not forget 
those who have served me, or my friends ; but my country is 
as a mother to me, and she is first. Yet how heavily it all lay 
on my heart \ it seemed to me that I could not bear it. Never 
has Christmas appeared so dark and gloomy as this year. As 
the year departed, on New Year's Eve, I stood filled with grief 
at what the next year might bring. God was almighty — I 
trusted in Him. He would not fail Denmark. 

1864. 

New Year's morning was a tingling, frosty day. I thought 
of our soldiers at their posts, and in the cold barracks. I 
thought, — Now the frost bridge is thrown over the water for 
the enemy, a whole army of people can cross it. What will 
happen ? I had not the strong confidence which so many 
about me had, that the Dannevirke could not be taken. I 
knew indeed how far more extensively they could array their 
soldiers than we, even if every soul went. I knew that from 
great Germany the railways could hurl against us soldiers, 
as the sea in a storm casts its waves against the strand. I 
asked one of my countrymen who was high in office, " Should 
the Dannevirke be taken, how could our soldiers then ap- 
proach Dyppel and Als without being fired upon ? " 
32 



49§ THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" How can a Dane," he burst out, " ask such a thing ! how 
can he think of the Dannevirke being taken ! " So strong 
was the confidence in God Almighty and what we sang and 
felt — our brave soldiers. 

Every day soldiers left for the seat of war, young men, — sing- 
ing in their youthful gayety, going as to a lively feast. For 
weeks and months I felt myself unfitted to do anything ; all 
my thoughts were with the men. On the first of February 
the telegram came that the Germans had crossed the Eider. 
Operations had commenced. By the end of the week we 
heard the evil tidings that Dannevirke was abandoned. Gen- 
eral Meza with our troops had, without the blow of a sword, 
retired from the frontier and were moving northward. I 
thought I was dreaming a horrid dream ! How crushed I 
was, and many, many were like me. Wailing crowds went 
rushing through the streets. What an evening it was ! what 
a time ! It was a day of fiery trial for us all ; but in this was 
our steadfast trust, — Father-land, the soldiers — our defense. 

There was exhibited great ingenuity in raising funds for the 
sick and wounded, and for the families and orphans of those 
who died. Every one gave more than his share, — he gave all 
he could scrape together. The theatres stood every evening 
as good as. closed, for no one was in the mood to go there. 
My previously named piece at the Casino, " On Long Bridge," 
it was believed, would as a novelty draw some spectators, and 
it proved to be so \ it took well, and people came for a few 
evenings. 

The sixteenth of February the enemy crossed King River, 
but we still held Als and Dyppel. God would not forsake us 
was my steadfast thought. The Queen's mother died just at 
this time, and I was appointed by the King to write a psalm 
which should be sung over her grave in Roeskilde cathedral. 
Some days after I was summoned to the Queen,' who thanked 
me most kindly for my words. We stood by the window, 
music struck up, soldiers went by to join the army, to give 
their young life blood. Large tears started from the Queen's 
eyes, — farewell tears for the Danish children. Foreign war 
had about it something to relieve it, — its moments of lightness 
but now we stood here singly against a multitude, and had 
only our trust, — God can abase, but He raises again. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



499 



Collin's daughter's son, Wiggo Drewsen, whom I had 
danced upon my arm when he was a child, and to whom I had 
sung one of my best known songs, " Little Wiggo," was badly 
wounded at Dyppel, and lay there among the dead and 
wounded until the battle was ended, and the Prussians bore 
him to their hospital. Who in this country had not some rela- 
tion, some dear friend, for whom they went, as I for him, in 
mournful unquietness. 

The second of April, Sonderborg was fired by the enemy. 
All Jutland was soon occupied by armed men, who crowded 
over Liimfjord and drew 7 near Skagen. I had in faith and 
hope sung, while the soldiers were fighting from the half de- 
stroyed fortifications, — 

A little band with trust in God 
And Right, holds out to th' end. 

But w r hat avails a little band against well appointed great 
armies ? I had a misgiving that my father-land would be sev- 
ered piece by piece, and bleed to death, that my mother 
tongue would be washed away, only sounding as an echo from 
the Northern coasts. Our old songs themselves would not 
come to the lips ; they sounded like the shoveling of earth 
upon the coffin : 

And shall we never sing again, 

M To Denmark meadows green belong ? " 
The heart is dead in singing men, 
For cruel Winter chased it when 
There came not to us that one friend 

For whom we watched so long. 

The Summer blows its gentle wind, 

The whitethorn blooms, and the cuckoo sings ; 

All as of old is fair and kind ; 

The birdies chirp with their wonted mind, 

And flowers with old bright hues we find, 
Only man's heart to sighing clings. 

There is no gain in griefs dark mood ; 

To weep, to mourn, no fortune makes 
What shall be has eternally stood, 
Writ by His hand who is wise and good, — 
Who His people has led by field and by flood, — 

Great King of kings who counsel takes. 



500 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Not yet has our old ship bade adieu. 

Up ! on the deck, then, every man ! 
A piece of the gunwale has gone, it is true, 
For the sea did brew, and its white foam flew 
Up to the Dannebrog fast held by the clew, — 

God held that fast in his mighty hand. 

Never shall trust vanish in air 

Till hearts have burst with sorrow ; 
And ever the people saith in prayer, 
Denmark in God's own love hath share, — 
He is our God, we are his care, 

And the sun shall shine to-morrow. 

But no sunshine fell upon us. Ships brought the wounded 
and mangled to Copenhagen. They were lifted out and 
borne through the streets to the hospitals. Some, like Cap- 
tain Schack died on the way thither. Several of the bodies 
of officers slain were brought to Copenhagen. I saw some 
friends among the dead ; most lay in their uniforms : there 
was a rest, a calm spread over their countenances, as if they 
had, wearied of the conflict, lain down here for quiet, to 
awaken strengthened and refreshed 

How heavily and drearily the time passed. The sun shone 
warmly, the trees and bushes stood fresh in the spring-time. 
I felt as if it were an added grief that all should seem so 
charming, — as if all things on earth were at peace. . I could not 
think of there being joy or any happy future. During this 
grievous time, my play, " He is not well-born," which I had 
written and brought out just before the beginning of the war, 
was to be performed at the Royal Theatre. Now I had no 
thought for it, nor any care to see it tried/ The day when the 
piece was to be given in the evening was indeed a great fu j 
neral day. Thirteen bodies of our fallen brave men were to 
be buried : there were ten officers and three privates. From 
the garrison church, dressed with flags and flowers, the coffins 
were borne, garlanded with flowers. A great procession ac- 
companied them, headed by the King and Landgrave. I 
joined the ranks, but was so overcome that I was soon forced 
to leave it and go into a friend's house. Thus cast down, I 
was forced in the evening to go to the representation of my 
piece. It was a felicitous affair, but I could not, as before, ask 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



501 



our Lord for a good result \ there was far weightier things to 
ask of Him. The piece, meanwhile, was received with great 
applause. The public's favorite, our distinguished actor, 
Michael Wiehe, played the principal part with a truthfulness 
and ardor that carried all with him. It was his last role ; 
some months after God called him away, and no one since has 
ventured to assume this part, for he elevated it and gave it its 
real character. The critics were well-disposed toward my work, 
but I felt no real pleasure ; that had no home with me for the 
moment, and I lost all hope of a happy future. 

My neighbors, friends, and acquaintances were as dispfrited 
as I : every one was penetrated by the feeling : one common 
ground we all had — love for our father-land. Daily, our youth 
still marched away. Als was attacked : soon came one evil 
telegram after another. France and England stood neutral. 
Als was taken, gone ! gone ! I could not weep ; the worst had 
come, the people fled from Middelfart. In Funen they awaited 
the enemy. I lost, for the moment, my hold of God, and felt 
myself as wretched as a man can be. Days followed in which 
I cared for nobody, and I believed nobody cared for me. I 
had no relief in speaking to any one. One, however, more 
faithful and kind, came to me, Edward Collin's excellent wife, 
who spake compassionate words and bade me give thought to 
my work. Another older and steadfast friend, Madame Neer- 
gaard, took me to her pleasant home in the wooded Sollerod, 
by the shining, quiet lake. Kind eyes shone on me, popular 
melodies sounded about us. She had a mother's love for me 
as a poet and a man. The year after, when God called her, I 
drew her picture in a few lines : — 

A Christian wert thou like apostles of old, 
Filled full with faith that flowered in actions right ; 
A very Dane at heart, thy soul took flight 

To Heaven's throne, where in thy meekness bold 
Thou bendest knee and prayest for Denmark there, — 
11 O let her grow in right and wisdom fair." 

Surely her first prayer in heaven would be, " Be gracious 
and good to Denmark." 

There was a merry gathering when I came there. The little 
garden was illuminated by torches and variegated lights, a 



502 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

most cheering greeting to the heartsick. It was indeed a 
pleasure to see the affectionate and lively company that gath- 
ered about her. It was here that I learned especially to know 
the gifted philosopher Rasmus Nielsen. Madame Neergaard 
bade me put my thoughts into some new production. My 
dear old friend, Professor Hartmann, likewise so urged me, and 
I wrote the words for a five act opera, " Saul." 

It was my determination that when peace, which was now 
concluded, brought back comfortable times to Denmark, I 
would go to Norway, where I never yet had been ; see the roar- 
ing cataracts, the deep quiet lakes, the country where my 
mother tongue resounds with a metallic ring from the moun- 
tain : with us it is a waving speech, as if from the bending 
beech boughs. I wished to visit Munch and Bjornstjerne 
Bjornson. Affectionate letters, full of heartiness and trust, were 
■sent to me during our heavy days of trial. With what friend- 
liness Bjornson estimated me, may be seen in a few lines which 
She wrote in his " Sigurd Slambe, " and sent me : — 

" Fancy thou gavest wings 
To fly over strange things and great ; 
But poesy gavest thou to my heart 
That knows things little and plain. 

" When my soul was heavy with child, 
Thou gavest me strength with growing thought ; 
And since my child has also grown, 
• Thou feedest me with thinking too." 

The peace did not have a very certain sound, and I did not 
go to Norway. God only knows whether I ever shall go. 

Epiphany Eve I was at Madame Ingemann's house in Soro. 
In the rooms all was the same save the empty chair ; but out- 
side, how changed ! The castle gardener had certainly beauti- 
fied the place exceedingly. The academy garden was thrown 
open, with plots outside the academy, but half of Ingemann's 
garden had to be taken away for it. This included the choicest 
part ; a little hill with great trees upon it had disappeared. 

Madame Ingemann had the right to have nothing changed 
after her husband's death, but they asked her permission, and 
the good woman answered at once, Yes. " It is indeed a kind- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 503 

ness that I should be asked/' said she, " a favor that I should 
continue to live here." At my departure I received a great 
bouquet, which came from Madame Ingemann, and from So- 
phie the maid, as well, who had added to it from flowers that 
grew in the pots in her window. My year closed at Basnos, 
the darkest, gloomiest year of my life. 

1865. 

New Year's Day opened with clear, still cold. Every one 
at Basnos drove to church, but I had more need to stay alone. 
In a churchly frame of mind I went into the garden, where 
there was a peacefulness in nature, a sacred quiet. I felt no 
anxiety for what the year should bring, nor yet any anticipa- 
tion. This New Year's morning is the only one I know when 
I did not with the Basnos' folk have a wish ready to ask. Like 
a sombre night of terror, the past year lay behind me. 

We were all invited to dinner at a neighboring place, the 
Espes. I begged to be allowed to remain at home, and then 
suddenly in my solitude there came a rush of thoughts which 
developed into a dramatic poem, " The Spaniards were here," — 
a romantic play in three acts." I could, when the others re- 
turned late in the evening, have related the movement of the 
action, scene by scene. My thoughts had again got their elas- 
ticity : I was absorbed in my intellectual labor, and my soul was 
lighter. The first act of my new play was produced at Basnos, 
the other two afterward in Copenhagen. I had given myself 
the problem that the chief character, the Spaniard, should not 
appear in person at all. I would not let him talk Danish like 
the others in the piece. One heard his Spanish song behind 
the scenes, and heard the shaking of the castanets ; his whole 
personality, meanwhile, was to stand out clear, fine, and noble, 
without his being visible : we were to accompany him in his 
love, his flight, and peril, confident that a year and a day would 
bring the hour of meeting his fortune and love. 

The piece was undertaken at the Royal Theatre, where the 
then manager, State Councilor Kranold, interested himself es- 
pecially for its success. My friend, Professor Hoedt, who had 
great influence in the theatre, showed a like sympathy. When 
the evening of the representation came there was quite a full 



504 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

house. Their majesties, the King and Queen, were present at 
the performance, but from the first moment there rested an in- 
explicable heaviness on the spectators, so that I had a feeling 
as if I were at some funeral gathering. The talented young 
actress, Miss Lange, who took the part of the romantic young 
mistress, was, contrary to all custom, very strongly censured. 
Madame Sodring, the public's special favorite, had made out 
of the court lady Dame Hagenau a character rather strongly 
marked, but not upon the first representation ; only after- 
ward was she fully estimated, and this role is now named as 
amongst her most notable ones. Jastrau sang the Spanish 
ballads remarkably well : but he also, whose singing usually 
met with enthusiastic applause, got none of that now. At the 
fall of the curtain, clapping and hissing were mingled. 

At the second representation, and always afterward, undi- 
vided applause attended it. The actors deserved all praise, 
and especially, Madame Sodring. The public is sometimes 
like wet kindling-wood that will not catch fire. The fault can 
lie in the dramatic work, too. It is difficult to pronounce an 
opinion when one's self is a part of the case, but it has been my 
experience that several of my compositions have suffered their 
severest condemnation at the first representation. 

For more than a year and a day had I written no wonder 
story, my soul was so burdened ; but now, as soon as I came 
out into the country to friendly Basnos, to the fresh woods by 
the open sea, I wrote " The Will-o'-the-Wisp is in the town," in 
which was told why it was that the wonder stories had been 
so long unwritten : because without was war, and within sor- 
row and want that war brought with it. The scene was laid at 
Basnos. Every one who has been here will remember the 
great alleys, the old grave-stone which once lay in Skjelskjor 
over a councilor and his six wives. A new story still came 
forth, the week after, here at pretty wooded , Frijsenborg. 
Since my former visit the enemy had been here, but now there 
was again rest and happiness : the entire castle, the new wing 
and the old part, was occupied. In the princely apartments, in 
the blooming garden, with kind hearted people in the midst of 
all the happiness which well doing and well wishing can offer 
one, several weeks flew by, and I wrote the Wonder Story 
" Gold Treasure," as well also as " In the Nursery." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 505 

My summer journeying closed in Zealand with friends at 
Christinelund, where I wrote the story, " The Storm shakes the 
Sign-boards : " the ink was not dry on the paper when I read it 
to the family, and just as I closed the reading, there came a 
violent blast : the trees bent, the leaves were sent scattering ; 
it was as if Nature in this wild storm were playing a fantasia 
on my new story. When, a few days afterward, I left Chris- 
tinelund, there lay still by the road-side great trees which had 
been torn up by their roots. It was a storm that might well 
shake the sign-boards. The poet is just ahead of his time, 
they say; I was certainly here just ahead of the storm. 

I was soon in Copenhagen, in my little room, among my pic- 
tures, books, and flowers. The owner of the house was an ex- 
cellent, practical, and cultivated woman, with whom I had now ' 
lived eighteen years, and from whom I had never thought 
of going away ; but I was nearer that than I supposed. I had 
just at this time received a letter from my Portuguese friend, 
the Danish Consul at Lisbon, George O'Neill, who with his 
brother, when they were both children, was brought up in 
Denmark in Admiral Wulff's house, where I was a daily visitor. 
George O'Neill and I had lately been corresponding ; he in- 
vited me to visit him, see his beautiful country, stay with him 
and his brother, and enjoy myself as well as they could make 
me. I felt a desire to make the visit, a longing to meet the 
friends of my youth again, but the recollection of the discom- 
forts I had experienced in my journey to Spain made me re- 
luctant. One morning, however, my excellent landlady came 
in quite cast down, and said that we must separate, and that in 
a month's time. Her son had become a student, and she had 
promised him that if he passed a good examination he should 
have a better apartment than formerly ; she had moreover 
given a promise to take in a young boarder, and needed thus 
my chamber. It was very disagreeable to me. I had spent 
eighteen changing years with these friendly people : I was a 
neighbor here, also, to my friend the composer Hartmann, 
whom I daily visited. All this was now to be changed. I took 
it as an indication from God that I should take the journey to 
Portugal, and it. settled the matter. Meanwhile it was reported 
in the papers that the cholera was in Spain, and had broken 



506 the story of my life. 

out in Portugal. I wrote a letter to George O'Neill about it. 
His kind answer was that he would not urge me to come, but 
would be exceedingly happy if I decided thus myself, and that 
I was to stay just as long as I liked. The cholera was spread- 
ing in Spain, but only a single case had shown itself in Portu- 
gal. I decided to take the journey, but not to go south at once. 
I wished to delay and to go to Stockholm, where I had not 
been for a long time, and where my dear friends, the author- 
ess Fredrika Bremer and the writer Baron Beskow, lived. It 
was in the charming after-part of summer that I set out. 

The first time that I visited Stockholm I made my journey 
by diligence, and was a whole week about it. Now Sweden 
had the railway : at two o'clock in the afternoon the train 
started from Malmo, and in the evening one is at Jonkj oping, 
where there is a good hotel, and as well managed as if it 
were in Switzerland : the next morning one takes his place 
in a carriage, and is at Stockholm in the afternoon. How 
changed ! what a flight ! Our children and children's children 
live in the time of conveniences. We old folks have had the 
line of trouble midway between the two generations : we stand, 
so to speak, with one leg in one generation and one in the 
other, but that is very interesting. 

Beskow was out in the country when I got there, as also 
Miss Bremer, but both were expected shortly; meanwhile 
I wished to go to Upsala. I did not go alone ; a kind Dan- 
ish family, Henriques, whom I had lately learned to know and 
to feel myself at home with, were in Stockholm, and they 
accompanied me to Upsala. Here I again saw my friend 
Botticher, who married Tegner's daughter Disa, author of many 
sweet songs, which, set to Lindblad's music, had been carried 
by Jenny Lind out into Europe's world of song. I met again 
Count Hamilton and his amiable wife, the poet Gejer's daugh- 
ter. He was now Chief Proprietor, and lived in the romantic- 
ally placed old castle. I also saw again the composer Joseph- 
son, who was Jenny Lind's godson, when he was christened. 
His songs sound as melodious as the lay of the thrush in the 
northern birch woods. I went to see him. He lived in the 
house of Linnaeus, Sweden's world-renowned botanist of former 
days. I passed a charming musical evening with Josephson, 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 507 

and the most cordial welcome was given to the gifted musi- 
cian, Madame Henriques, from Copenhagen. In the evening 
we returned to our hotel. The Henriques had their room near 
mine, and I had already lain down, when I heard a noise in the 
street — a charming song, a serenade. Was it for me ? — I knew 
the good-will my young Swedish friends bore me — or was it 
given to Madame Henriques ? I sprang out of bed, went to 
the window, and sat behind the curtain. The singers turned 
their faces all toward my neighbors' windows. So doubtless 
Madame Henriques got it ! I received from the students at 
Upsala an invitation to a festival to be given in the summer 
hall, which was adorned with flags, especially the Danish one. 
The Chief Proprietor and several of the older members of the 
University took. part in it. The author Bjorck, son of the 
Bishop of Gotheborg, a true poet of great genius — God has 
since called him to Himself — greeted me with a pretty poem 
that did me too much honor. 

The song was sung ; the conversation was very lively and 
hearty. I read three of my Wonder Stories, — " The Butter- 
fly," u The Fir-tree," and " The Ugly Duckling," and received 
loud applause, and then was escorted amidst singing by the 
students to my home. The stars shone, the new moon was 
glimmering, it was a lovely, quiet evening, and up in the north 
the horizon was flaming with Northern Lights. When the next 
day I came to Stockholm, I found in the hotel an invitation to 
visit the King at his pleasure castle, Ulriksdal, which is situa- 
ted a few miles from Stockholm, in the midst of woods and 
rocks, on a bay running in from the salt sea. After a lower- 
ing sky, the rain poured down and there was a great storm, so 
that I was obliged to get to the castle immediately, without see- 
ing anything of the picturesque environs. As I sat a moment 
alone in the fine large hall, a gentleman stepped in, reached out 
his hand to me, and gave me a hearty welcome. I pressed his 
hand in return, but while I talked it came out that it was the 
King himself. For a moment I had not known him. He took 
me himself about the castle, and before sitting at table pre- 
sented me to the Queen, who in her appearance reminded me of 
the noble — now dead — Grand Duchess of Weimar, whose re- 
lation she was. The young and not yet confirmed Crown Prin- 



508 the story of my life. 

cess Louise shook hands with me in a friendly way and 
thanked me for the pleasure she had had in reading my stories. 
She made a very pleasant impression upon me by her natural- 
ness, her trustworthiness, and child-like affection. She is now 
the Danish Crown Prince Frederick's betrothed, and soon will 
be our Crown Princess. God bless the young couple. A lively 
conversation was carried on at the table. The King and Queen 
and all about were cordial and kindly disposed toward me. 
When coffee was brought in, the King took me to his smoking 
room and presented me with the latest books of his own writ- 
ers. It was a charming day, one full of happiness, that spent 
with my royal patron. 

A few days after I was called to an audience and dinner at 
the Queen Dowager's at Drotningholm, where also Prince Os- 
car with his family lived. I went out there by steamer, and 
was surprised at the splendid castle with its garden ! I was 
reminded of the villa Albano at Rome, but Drotningholm has 
more beauty ; it lies on an arm of Lake Malar. I had not 
seen her majesty since her husband King Oscar died. How 
much had there not passed in the world between that time 
and this. She seemed to me just as before, lively and kind. 
We talked for a long time together, when she was simple and 
gracious, open and cordial. Before dinner one of the gentle- 
men of the house took me around the garden ; there was 
something very bright and sunny about all of Drotningholm. 
When her majesty said good-by after dinner, she added, — 
" You came by the steamboat, but that is gone ; but here is 
a carriage at your service whenever you yourself wish to order 
it." She gave me in charge to one of the chamberlains, who 
was to show me the halls of the castle. As we began our 
walk Prince Oscar came up, and showed me the historic and 
artistic treasures, and took me into his private garden, where 
he showed me his children and a little oak also. ' He told me 
that he was betrothed to his wife on the Rhine, and that when 
they went there a year after, an acorn then planted had grown 
into a two-leaved tree, which they took up and transplanted 
in a little flower pot and set out here in the garden ; it was 
*iow higher than I. When I was taking a leaf from the near- 
est tree as a souvenir of my visit at Drotningholm, the Prince 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



509 



gave me a branch from this tree. Lake Malar was before 
the castle, and quite hanging over the water was a great 
willow-tree. It was when Drotningholm was put in order ? 
in the time of Charles XII. 's mother, and the quay was 
built, that many trees and bushes were taken away. Popular 
belief said then that this tree lived and put forth its leaves 
with the kingly race. When King John lay sick the tree with- 
'ered and came near dying, the old kingly race was near dying 
out ; but when King John's grandson, Sweden's present king, 
was born, the old willow grew green again. It was almost 
dark night when I left hospitable Drotningholm ; as I stepped 
into the carriage, the composer Wennerberg, came up, Swe- 
den's Bell man of our time, both in music and words. We 
pressed one another's hands and separated with the warm 
feeling which is natural to Sweden's skalds and thier youthful- 
ness. 

The next evening, when in Stockholm, I visited the River 
Garden, which the little island under the bridge is called which 
joins the castle holm to the north holm, where there is a cafe, 
and in the evening an illumination and music. I was in com- 
pany with a number of young and old authors and artists ; the 
highly gifted and very genial dramatic writer Blancha came 
in ; he was greeted with great delight and brought to me. 
" Art thou there, brother ? " he cried with a bright face, and 
embraced and kissed me. I mention it, because while I was 
surprised at the feast which gave me so much pleasure, I knew 
that we never had drunken Thous to each other. 

In Sweden it is so common that I can well understand that 
when young or old men with mutual interests in intellectual 
matters come together, all titles are thrown away, and they 
express themselves naturally with the confidential thou ; so 
that after a time of festivity or lively meeting one easily, when 
years have gone by and he sees me again, is sure that we 
know one another, are friends, and even that we have most 
certainly drunk thou to each other. This the vivacious 
Blancha now believed, and I held my peace and answered 
with a thou, and clinked glasses with my Thou brother. That 
will never again occur, for he also belongs to the great ones 
who have left us. In 1868, at a festival, when Charles XII.'s 



5 TO THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

monument was to be dedicated, Blancha suddenly fell dead in 
the street. 

o 

Miss Bremer was in the country at her estate Arsta. As 
soon as she heard of my coming she invited me there for a 
long visit, but when this could not be managed on my part 
she came to Stockholm. I had not seen her or talked with 
her since she with our American friends, Marcus Spring and 
his wife, visited Denmark. So much meanwhile had hap- 
pened ! We talked about the Springs, and about Henriette 
WulfPs death in the burning ship on her voyage to America : 
we talked of Denmark's sorrowful days of trial. The tears 
fell down the cheeks of the noble, compassionate woman. 
We talked of Jenny Lind, of much that was now gone by. 

" I am always a steadfast friend, Andersen/' said she, and 
her delicate hand grasped mine. It was the last time for this 
life : with Christmas came the sorrowful tidings, — Fredrika 
Bremer is dead. She had taken cold in church, had come 
home, and passed quietly into the sleep of death. Another 
of my faithful friends was lost to me for this world. In her 
letters I have a treasure and a memory. 

The writer Baron Beskow had come to town, and had for 
my gratification invited a select company, whom I was to 
meet. I have his letter that gives the programme : — 

" Tuesday, October 3, 1865. 
" Dear Friend, — I went to see you yesterday, to name 
those who are to come to our little dinner party to-morrow, 
namely, the Librarian of the Royal Library, Rydquist (our 
Jacob Grimm), the Antiquary Hildebrandt (our Thomsen), 
the keeper of the archives Bovwalius (our Wegener), the 
Skald (talis qualis) Strandberg,(the translator of Byron), C. G. 
Strandberg (the translator of Anacreon), Tander, who is per- 
sonally known to you, and Dahlgren (who is the author of a 
national drama, which has been given one hundred and thirty 
times ; the translator, also, of Calderon, etc.). You see the 
guests are not many but they are select. You will be a wel- 
come to-morrow at four o'clock, by your old friend, 

" Beskow." 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 5 I I 

It was a cozy party, with a spirit of intellectual freedom and 
heartiness about it. 

It was twenty-five years since I had been in Sweden's uni- 
versity town of Lund. In 1840 I received here the first pub- 
lic reception that was ever given me ; the students came with 
music and speeches. I have told about it in " The Story of my 
Life," and have said how overcome I was at this expression 
of regard. It seemed to me then as if I dared not come here 
again in years to come — that such a feast could never again 
be given me. Five-and-twenty years had gone by since that. 
I should meet a whole new generation. The journey home 
carried me close by ; I wanted to spend a day or two in the 
town so friendly to my youth, to visit the old church, see the 
new college building which I had never seen. Some friends 
in Upsala had given me letters to a few of the Professors in the 
University, when I said that I was now a stranger in Lund. 

The long journey by rail was still a play of color in the 
woods ; the yellow birch, the dark-green pines, and vermilion 
thorns, wooden houses with black roofs and white chimneys, 
the stony soil, the bold cliffs, and the great full sea were con- 
stantly appearing in turn. I reached Lund in the evening ; I 
knew nobody, and believed that nobody knew me. I sought 
the hotel and went early in the evening to bed, weary from 
my journey. Soon I heard singing ; some students were hav- 
ing a supper at the hotel in honor of some who were leaving. 
The singing sounded sweetly, and soon it sounded just out- 
side my door. The young friends knew I was here, but when 
they heard that I had lain down to rest they went back again. 

I was commended to Professor Olde, and Linngreen gave 
me also a pleasant dinner with an intellectual company ; 
during the dinner there came an invitation from the students, 
who had hastily decorated a hall to give a feast to me, with a 
youthful enthusiasm such as their fellows at Upsala had also 
shown toward me. 

At seven o'clock in the evening Professor Linngreen took 
me there. The hall was splendidly decorated. The walls were 
dressed with the arms of the provinces, and over each waved 
a Swedish and a Danish flag; at the stand also was planted 
the flag which the ladies of Copenhagen had worked for the 



5 I 2 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

students of Lund. The hall and apartments were filled with 
the old and young members of the University ; after the eat- 
ing came the speech-making, and I was welcomed from the 
stand by the spokesman of the students. I have kept the 
memory of what was said, but not the very words in which it 
was said : " Five-and-twenty years ago the students of Lund 
gave me a welcome and greeting. The current was still the 
same, but it was another generation ; exactly a generation had 
grown up under my writings, which had been to them spiritual 
sustenance, for which they owed me thanks and love." 

Singing followed, and a young poet, Wendel, read a pretty 
poem to me, and I expressed my gratitude by reading three of 
my Wonder Stories, — " The Butterfly," " The Happy Family," 
and " It is certainly so." Each one was received with shouts 
of applause, and now there followed in quick succession Dan- 
ish and Swedish songs, which were so familiar, so full of young- 
hearted warmth, that it was again an evening of fortune which 
shines in my memory. The whole gathering followed me to the 
hotel where I was staying, arm in arm ; the procession marched 
out to the sound of singing from the college building past 
the old church ; we stopped for a moment by Tegner's monu- 
ment, and then moved on with song through the quiet streets 
emptied of townsfolk. When I stood at my door they gave 
me nine cheers. Moved to deep gladness, I expressed my 
thanks, and reached my little chamber, humble and yet lifted 
up in heart, when there sounded still from the street a song 
which was the very melody that five-and-twenty. years before 
had been sung at my festival in Lund in 1841. God grant 
every one of these young friends that gladness of life which I 
felt this evening. 

As soon as I came to Copenhagen I went into a hotel, for I 
was still a traveller and about to go to Portugal ; but the route 
thither by sea from France was not attractive in the stormy 
autumn ; in Spain it was unquiet. The paper spoke of Prim's 
troops that were in movement on the border near Badajos, — the 
very route I should have to take if I went by land. I decided 
to wait here at home some time and see how things turned out. 

The pleasantest picture which my memory holds of this 
time is a short and charming visit at Fredensborg. The King 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



5*3 



Two apartments in the cas- 
tle were given me, and I found, as always, the most cordial, if 
I dare use the expression, most friendly reception. The King's 
family wished to hear me read my last written stories. I have 
seen all the King's children grow up. and always from their 
childhood they have given me the hands of friends. To know 
this family is to be drawn to them, — it is such a charming 
household, full of affection and a temperate life. The Queen 
has great good sense, and an inborn talent for painting and 
music : of the King's noble heart and amiable character one 
sees many beautiful traits. All the King's children have heard 
me read my Wonder Stories, — the Crown Prince Frederick 
and his brother, now King of Greece, the princesses Alexandra 
and Dagmar. Now there sat here the two youngest children, 
Princess Thyra and little Valdemar, who had this evening 
got a promise that he should stay up half an hour longer so 
that he could hear a part of the reading. 

The next day I made a few pleasant calls. Off in the gar- 
den of the castle, in one of the buildings, lived my friend, the 
poet Paludan-Miiiler, of whom I have previously spoken. He 
is master of the Danish tongue, as Byron and Riickert were 
masters of their mother tongues, so that he made music of it. 
Every one of his poems discovers a profoundly poetic soul. 
" Adam Hama," "The Marriage of the Dryad," "The Death 
of Abel," will always be read and admired. As a man Pa- 
ludan-Moller has something so naive, frank, and good that 
one immediately feels drawn toward him. 

Still another happy house I was to visit in Fredensborg 
was that of my friend the rare artist and ballet-writer Au- 
gust Bournonville, who has raised his kind of art on the Dan- 
ish stage, so that it occupies a worthy place among the best 
of all arts. In Paris they have more distinguished dancers 
than we, more decorations and extraordinary arrangements 
intermingled with the dancing, but such richness in truly 
poetic ballet composition as Bournonville has given, only Co- 
penhagen possesses ; there is a beauty, a noble purity, some- 
thing very refined and characteristic in the great circle of 
ballets which he has given us. It would be a complete re- 
pertoire if we were to mention all that one or another has 



514 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

pronounced excellent, but most will certainly agree in naming 
"Napoli," "Kermesson in Bruges/' "The Conservatory," and 
" A Folk Story." Bournonville can perhaps rightly blame us 
if we do not also here mention a couple of his historic ballets, 
" Waldemar," with popular and beautiful music by Frolich, and 
" Valkyrien," which has the grand music so full of melodies, 
by J. P. E. Hartmann. 

Bournonville, who is the creator and manager of the ballet 
of our day on the Danish stage, has at the same time a father's 
interest in all those who take part in his works. He is of a 
warm, affectionate nature, and a good comrade. When one en- 
ters his homelike house he finds it full of sunshine, and sees 
his pretty lively wife and well-behaved children. 

I saw the familiar home life in the King's castle ; I saw it 
also in two smaller homes, equally full of sunshine, those o,f 
my friends Paludan-Muller and Bournonville. To the latter I 
had just now dedicated my latest Wonder Stories which I read 
to the King's family. Bournonville took me to his arms and 
expressed his hearty thanks, just as he had often encouraged 
me by word and by writing, giving me confidence and lifting 
my soul when one and another called friends had made me 
discontented. 

At Copenhagen I was as restless as a traveller who cannot 
reach his destination. The cholera was in Paris, and how that 
would affect my health and peace in Spain I could not get in- 
formed, but I hoped to learn it immediately after the new year. 
Circumstances must determine my journey, 'and show how far 
south I should go. Christmas and the first days of the new 
year I spent at Holsteinborg and Basnos. There I received a 
letter filled with the perfume of violets. George O'Neill sent 
these as greetings from the spring which awaited me at Lis- 
bon. 

1866. 

At Amsterdam I have two prosperous and excellent fellow- 
countrymen, the brothers Brandt; I received from both of 
them a cordial letter, with an invitation to stay during my en- 
tire visit with the elder of the brothers, who is gifted, as I 
came to know, with one of the noblest, most thoughtful women 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 515 

of Holland for a wife. Only once before had I been in Hol- 
land, in the year 1847, when I first visited England. I then met 
at the Hague so much good-will and attention that I received a 
constant feast of good things, of which I have before spoken. 

The first of the friends who then came to see me was now 
dead, the publisher of " De Tijd," Van der Vliet, but I re- 
membered the names of dear friends who looked for my com- 
ing \ such were the old, highly honored writer, Van Lennep, 
the distinguished composer Verhulst, the author Kneppel- 
hout, and the remarkable tragic actor Peters. Now I could 
for a longer time be with these, and see what especially be- 
longs to Amsterdam, and enjoy the pleasures of family life 
there. 

The last of January I left Copenhagen by the evening train. 
It was winter time ; the water was open, but it was cold. I 
was, it seemed to me, well provided with travelling luggage. 
It seemed to one of my friends, however, that this was not 
the case, for he came in the morning and left a whole lot 
of well lined travelling boots spread out on the floor \ the 
largest and best pair w r as to be his good-by souvenir. I 
mention this little incident, and could in my life name num- 
berless others of like character, the acts of individual friends. 
The words of sympathy and willingness to serve me which he 
expressed so earnestly showed me clearly what a friend I had, 
and how large a place I was made to have in his noble home 
circle. I shall hereafter come to speak of this home, when at 
the close of these pages I speak of the week-day and Sunday 
homes which I have, so to speak, in my father-land. 

From Korsor by Funen through the Grand Duchy we went 
in rapid journey. At Haderslev I saw the Prussian soldiery. 
I felt in an unhappy mood and depressed. I occupied the 
coupe with a young Prussian officer and his still younger wife, 
obliging people. I did not know them, nor they me. Later 
in the evening, at Altona station, while I stepped out of the 
carriage, there came an older man with a little girl, w r ho looked 
at me and said in German to the child, " Give your hand to 
that man. It is Andersen, who has written the pretty stories. " 
He smiled at me, the child reached out her hand, and I patted 
her cheek. This little incident put me in good humor, and 



516 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

soon I was in my old home in Hamburg, the Hotel de PEu- 
rope. 

The next day I drew near Celle, where I had only been in 
183 1, on my first journey. I wished to visit the unhappy Queen 
Mathilde's grave, and the castle where she spent the last years 
of her life. In the " French Garden " there is shown a mon- 
ument of her made of a block of marble ; there was a wooden 
penthouse over it to keep off the winter snow ; it looked like 
a barrack. 

In one of the apartments of the castle there hung a large 
portrait of Queen Mathilde, very different from the earlier one 
I had seen in Denmark. The picture I saw was beautiful, 
and the expression reminded me of Frederick VI. 

I left Hanover by the Westphalian Gate, and came by rail 
to Rheine, approaching the Holland border. It was late 
evening and a storm raged. Nearly all the lamps in the 
carriage had gone out, and it was black night within and with- 
out. I thought to myself, if this turns out well it is a good 
thing. We whizzed away as if driven by the storm, and when 
we drew near the station at Rheine, it seemed as if here also 
.all the lights had been blown out. A man stumbled ahead 
with a lantern : that was to light us while we crossed the iron 
rails and eyed the procession that was in motion behind and 
before us. I came to the hotel which was pointed out ; it did 
not look very inviting outside, and proved very frugal, with 
low-studded rooms, slow attendance, with black and sour 
bread. I felt as if I had gone back thirty years, and was trav- 
elling in a little town. Many call that the time of romance ! 
I prefer the time of modern conveniences — our time. 

The next day I entered Holland ; the carriage contained 
also a gentleman wearing decorations, a Hollander. In the 
- course of conversation he heard that I was from Denmark. 
" You will meet with a distinguished countryman of yours in 
Amsterdam," said he ; " Andersen is there." I doubted that, 
and said that I was Andersen. 

At the station in Amsterdam the brothers Brandt met me, 
and took me to my new home with the oldest of the brothers. 
It was a large, fine house, with garden and trees, outside by the 
canal called Heerengraacht, in the prettiest part of the town. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 5 I 7 

I was received as an old friend by people whom I saw for the 
first time. The mother and sons in the house spoke excellent 
Danish ; they both made a good impression upon me. The 
master of the house himself was full of animation and atten- 
tion to my wants. I had at once the delightful sense of being 
blessed with good friends. Here, as in England and Scotland, 
there is a pleasing patriarchal custom with household and ser- 
vants, of having a religious season morning and evening. The 
whole household is gathered for the reading of the Bible, 
which is followed by a psalm that gave a restful feeling to my 
soul. There was much sociability here. The evenings passed 
with music, song, and reading. Many more than I had sup- 
posed spoke Danish. I read nearly every evening a few of 
my Wonder Stories and Tales ; if the company was large, they 
were given in French, English, or German translation. The 
elder Mr. Brandt was quite good at giving on the spot a Dutch 
translation of the Danish book which he had before him. 

Soon after my arrival I received an invitation from the 
management of the Stadt Theatre, three of the most eminent 
actors, among whom was the distinguished tragedian, Mr. 
Peters, to occupy any place which I might prefer during my 
entire visit. I had individual friends in Amsterdam of long 
standing whom I must visit. The town itself I became more 
familiar with than before. This time it was no flying visit 
which I made, but a stay of several weeks. 

Amsterdam is not Holland's capital, but its chief city, the 
most extensive and active town in the country, — a very Venice 
of the North. The town is built upon piles in mud and water. 
The learned Erasmus characterized it when he said, " I have 
come to a city whose inhabitants live like crows on tops of 
trees. " Many an overflowing grain depot has given way when 
the foundation was not strong enough to sustain it ; many a 
house pitched uneasily toward the street, only held in place 
by its stronger neighboring dwellings. There is a net-work 
of canals, as in Venice ; but they are made wider, and have 
streets on both sides, where wagons rumble, — a thing which 
Venice does not know. The principal street of the town, 
Kalver Straat, stretches small and crooked from the Amstel 
up to the square where the Town Hall stands, on ground rest- 



5 l8 • THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

ing on piles, and where the Exchange, with its rows of Grecian 
pillars, is the noticeable point of the town. What always 
shocked my eye in Amsterdam was the striking costume worn 
by the children in the Orphan House ; perhaps the disagree- 
ableness for me lay in the fact that one only sees a similar 
dress on our criminals in Denmark, who work in servitude, — 
the one side of their clothes being gray, the other brown. In 
Amsterdam the poor orphans go about, girls and boys, with 
one side red, the other black. The boys' jackets and trou- 
sers, and also the girls' waists and skirts, are two sorts, black 
and red. 

I visited a few of the schools for the poor, and heard the 
singing of the children. I saw the Jews' quarter, the Art Gal- 
lery and Museum, and what was especially new and wonderful 
to me, the Zoological Gardens — that was the most interesting 
of any I know. In summer there is music here : now one 
could only hear the fearful beasts' howl ; the shrieking parrots 
and cockatoos made their noises ; a little blackbird had 
learned to say a few Dutch words, which it repeated inces- 
santly. There was a grand collection here of wolves, bears, 
tigers, and hyenas ; the kingly lion and the clumsy elephant. 
The llamas cast their spittle at us ; the eagle looked with its 
human, wise — much too wise — glance at us; what splendid 
dress of feathers he wore ! In such a collection of feathered 
fowls one learns to despise what the dyer's art can do. Black 
swans swam in the basins ; seals came out and sunned them- 
selves ; but the most interesting, because most novel to me, 
were the hippopotamuses, male and female, in their deep 
water ponds. They raised their ugly heads several times 
above the water, and displayed their great mouths with big 
teeth far apart. Their skin reminded me of hogs' skin with- 
out the bristles. There had just been born a young one. 
The keeper had to watch night and day for the coming of the 
little creature to secure it before it should be killed by the 
male. The young fellow had his own house provided like his 
parents. He ducked under the water when I entered. The 
keeper knew how to poke him out ; he was as big as a fat- 
tened calf, had dusky eyes, and a reddish yellow hide that 
looked like a fish skin minus its scales. His future was 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 5 ig 

already provided for, for he had been sold to the Zoological 
Garden at Cologne. 

The days flew by all too rapidly in Amsterdam ; there 
was so much to see, so many acquaintances to visit. The 
three oldest ones I had, dating from my first stay here, were 
the honored old writer Van Lennep, the composer Verhulst, 
and the actor Peters. My dear friend Van Lennep was an 
old man, with silver white hair like Thorwaldsen. He spoke 
jestingly of the likeness of his face to Voltaire, and said it was 
more wrinkled and satiric now. He said that he was at work 
upon the since completed romance, "The Seven Stars." A 
few of his best known dramatic works have recently been put 
upon the stage, and he promised that during my stay here I 
should see acted his tragedy, " De Vrouwe van Wardenburg." 

The composer Verhulst, whom I next visited, met me with 
rejoicing. His first question was about our common friend 
Niels Gade, who of all contemporary composers he placed 
the highest. He showed me how thoroughly he studied his 
compositions ; he showed me these, and among them the 
" Hamlet Overture," which the week before I came had been 
given at the Amsterdam Musical Union, where Verhulst was 
director. He mourned that Holland, unlike Denmark, had 
no national opera. In the following week there was again to 
be given a grand concert, and he promised that, notwithstand- 
ing there had been given at the two last concerts pieces by 
Gade, namely the " Hamlet Overture " and " In the High- 
lands," I should still hear some of Gade's works. 

The evening came. I was present at the concert, when was 
given one of Gade's symphonies, and this was especially ap- 
plauded, and people looked at me as much as to say, — " Carry 
our enthusiasm to your gifted countryman." There was an ele- 
gantly dressed audience ; but it was unpleasant to me not to 
see a face of the people, whose men in our time are those who 
have given us the most remarkable musical works, the people 
who gave us Mendelssohn, Halevy, and. Meyerbeer. I did 
not see a single Jew, and mentioned my surprise, and it was 
still greater when I heard — would I had misunderstood my 
ears! — that they were not admitted here. On several occa- 
sions I received the impression that there is a strong division 
here between men in social, religious, and artistic relations. 



520 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

In Denmark one meets on the stage the most remarkable 
artists, men and women, moving in the best circles, but not 
here in Amsterdam. I spoke of this, and named a person whom 
I wished to meet, and was answered that here it was contrary 
to custom and usage • but it is not good custom and usage. 
In Denmark, God be praised, we do not know such distinc- 
tions. At the King's palace on reception evenings, when the 
most eminent are invited, the famous actors are not excepted. 

The Stadt Theatre at Amsterdam, which I visited frequently, 
gave nearly every evening a representation in Dutch • but once 
a week there came from the Royal Theatre at the Hague the 
French opera and ballet; Meyerbeer's " L' Africaine " was 
given, and the ballet " Biche en Bois." The opera had good 
vigor, beautiful voices, and was well received ; the ballet was, 
in respect to composition and beauty, far below what the Dan- 
ish stage has. I saw a few tragedies, such as Schiller's 
" Maid of Orleans " ; the principal role was taken finely and 
with understanding by the first actress on the stage, Miss 
Kleine Gartmann ; and of still greater interest to me was her 
rendering of " De Vrouwe van Wardenburg." The piece is a 
dramatic poem in three acts. First one sees her as the strong, 
passionate woman, who herself leads the defense when her town 
is stormed ; later she comes forward as an older wife ; and finally 
she is the aged matron in a time when all the former relations 
and opinions are entirely changed, when her daughter's son is 
a Protestant and leads to the altar the daughter of a workman. 
She awaits the bridal party in the knightly hall, where they 
are to receive her blessing ; her hand rests upon her grandson's 
head, but when she is to lay it upon the head of the bride, 
born in poverty and meanness, her last strength leaves her 
and she drops dead. It is a strong and absorbing picture 
from historic times. With my friends' (the Brandts) explanation 
I understood the whole movement, and was especially taken 
with Miss Kleine Gartmann's masterly acting. I heard later 
that it was a copy of Ristori's representation of Elizabeth, 
which I have not seen ; but it was certainly well done and a 
piece of genuine acting which was exhibited in " De Vrouwe 
van Wardenburg." I saw the piece a few times ; it is certainly 
a remarkable production upon the Holland stage, but if it 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



521 



were to be given in a strange country I have my doubts about 
it. Here it was given well mounted and with great refine- 
ment. Between the acts, however, there was something out 
of place. The orchestra played modern dance music : I was 
for my part zealous for Verhulst and Petters. The gallery on 
the occasion was filled with a noisy, restless people, who 
shouted at the music and whistled an accompaniment. It 
was a poor custom too, I thought, that in the evening the 
spectators drank their tea and lager in the parquet ; but every 
country has its own customs. 

On my former visit to Holland I did not see Ten Kate, 
who is perhaps the most eminent writer of the country, but 
now we were to meet and become friends. His-son-in-law, 
the merchant Van Hengel, had a few years before with his 
young wife been in Denmark \ they visited me there, and 
brought a greeting from the poet. Now he gave this for him- 
self at the table of his son-in-law. There was met here a large 
company, and most of them understood Danish. Ten Kate 
proposed my health, and then that of my father-land, Denmark, 
which should live and blossom forth after all its heavy trials. 
He spoke warm words, that were uttered with such fervor as 
to bring tears to my eyes. I proposed Ten Kate's health 
and then Holland's, and finally read in Danish two of my sto- 
ries, "The Most Charming Rose of the World" and "The 
Butterfly," which had been faithfully and poetically rendered, 
and included in my collected works. 

He improvised a poem in Dutch to me, which I answered 
in the same way in Danish. It was most hearty and lively, 
and the little snug room was certainly one of gayety. The 
table was decorated with a large confection representing For- 
tune. She held the Danish flag, on which my name was in- 
scribed, and Holland's flag with the name Ten Kate : I have 
still as a souvenir this flag. Ten Kate keeps the Danish one. 
The entire piece was quite covered over with small storks, my 
favorite bird, and, I believe, the arms of the Hague. 

Our Danish Consul, Voldsen, gave a similar dinner, where I 
was the honored guest, and where Ten Kate gave me a de- 
lightful and charmingly expressed welcome from the children 
of Holland. He read also his versified translation of my 



52 2 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

story, " The Angel." I was obliged then to tell vivA voce in 
Danish the story of " The Swineherd." 

One evening in my home with the Brandt family, there was 
a large and select company, when I heard for the first time 
the old white-haired poet Van Lennep recite with great youth- 
fulness and dramatic action a long poem of Van Bilderdijk, 
Holland's old and honored poet. 

Five weeks had I spent in this hospitable and happy home, 
and now came the day of departure. The brothers Brandt 
accompanied me to the station, but I was not going farther 
than to Leyden, where good friends awaited me. The sun 
shone warmly, a thin sheet of snow still lay on the earth; but 
at the last station the snow had melted, and from this time we 
entered spring, for there was no more snow or cold. 

At the railway station in Leyden I was met by my friend 
the poet Van Kneppelhout, and taken by him to his pretty 
house, where I was to stay a few days. His excellent wife 
called us to dinner, and here I found gathered a large part of 
the professors of Leyden University, with their wives. We 
talked in French, English, and Danish. A large printed story 
by Van Kneppelhout, "The Swallows and Leeches," was given 
to the guests in remembrance of this dinner. I met again 
my old friend, the well known Professor Schlegel, and learned 
to know the celebrated astronomer Keiser, visited his great 
observatory, and would have seen the sun spots, but the clouds 
would not give me a chance. 

In an open carriage, one beautiful sunny day, I drove with 
Van Kneppelhout and his wife out to the dunes, where a new 
immense sluice-way conducts the Rhine to the sea ; and thus 
the Rhine does not, as my geography taught me when I was 
at school, " lose itself in the sand." The way led through pic- 
turesque villages ; in the grounds were long beds filled with 
crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips. 

We got out of the carriage in front of the sand dunes and 
climbed over the wet sand, where the sun, as long as we were 
on the lee side, burned with hot rays. The sea lay stretched 
out before us ; only a solitary ship was to be seen. We went 
to the sluices where the Rhine is conducted into the North 
Sea ; it is a cyclopean work built in our day. The wind blew 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. . 523 

icily cold, and sent the flying sand into our eyes : it was late 
in the afternoon before we returned to our home in Leyden. 

Meeting and separating, however happy one may be, 01 
however much he may enjoy himself, is the beating of the 
pulse in travel. At the Hague, whither my route now lay, I 
should in a few days only see again my excellent host and 
hostess, and meet with friends and acquaintances. I had 
there our Danish Ambassador, Baron Bille-Brohe, whom I had 
known from his student days \ and there too was Fredrika 
Bremer's relation, my friend Baron Wrede, the Swedish Am- 
bassador. 

In the carriage which took me the short distance to the 
league, I sat with a young couple, who asked if I was not the 
Danish writer Andersen. They thought they knew me from 
the portrait they had seen in Amsterdam. At the hotel Oude 
Doelen, where I had stayed before, I received a cordial shak- 
ing of hands. 

How delightful it is, a real blessing from God, to be out in 
the world, to sit down in a great city all unknown, an entire 
stranger, and yet know with certainty that only meet there 
with some misfortune and one suddenly discovers that he 
has friends, real and true. I soon felt myself quite at home 
at the Hague. I saw here, at a great dinner given by Van 
Brienen, all the distinguished world, learned to know many 
excellent people, and went away again south by Rotterdam to 
Antwerp. 

The fire burned in the chimney-place, the sun shone into 
the cozy room. One of my first visits was to the celebrated 
painter Keiser, the director of the Academy. He lives at the 
Musaeum, where I found him in his study, and was received as 
if I were an old acquaintance. He showed me the colossal 
work which was occupying him at the time, and can be finished 
only after several years' labor, — a painting which is to cover 
the walls in a great hall of the Musaeum, — a representation 
of all the history of Flemish art. There are more than a hun- 
dred portraits in full length, to say nothing of lesser allegorical 
pictures, as of Philosophy, Poetry, History, marked by busts 
of Plato, Homer, and Herodotus. 

The good man himself took me about the Musaeum, which 



524 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

is rich in the best paintings of Rubens, Van Dyck and others. 
In Antwerp also had I a hospitable Danish home with my 
countryman the merchant Good and his wife. I saw with him 
a large part of the city, the fine churches and monuments. 
What especially interested me in this place was an artistic 
memorial ; it was not the statues of Rubens and Van Dyck, 
only a tablet sunk in the wall at the entrance of the cathedral 
— the likeness of Quentin Matsys, who died in 1529. The 
inscription tells how "in Sijnen Tijd grossmidt en daernais 
Tamens schilder." Therein lies a whole romance. Out of 
his love for a painter's beautiful daughter, he threw aside his 
anvil and hammer and took up brush and pallet. Love in- 
spired him and carried him on, and as a painter of repute he 
gained his young bride. One of his greatest pictures has a 
place in the Musaeum, and on the tablet stands in Latin, " Love 
made the smith into an Apelles." 

I passed through Brussels to Paris. Our Danish Crown 
Prince Frederick was here, staying at the Hotel Bristol, on the 
Place Vendome. He spoke graciously with all. One heard 
his praises everywhere. He received me with his wonted 
kindness, and on the first Sunday afterward I spent a delight- 
ful day in his company. He invited me to accompany him 
to the races at Vincennes. At one o'clock we set out in three 
carriages, every one with four horses and out-riders. Our 
route lay by the Boulevards, and we passed all the other 
carriages. People stood and gazed with all attention at the 
Crown Prince : " Cest lui ! cest lui ! " they cried. Arrived at 
the place, the Prince was received by one of the town officials, 
who took him to the imperial tribune, while the rest of us fol- 
lowed on. There was a great apartment there with fire burn- 
ing in the grate, soft chairs and sofas : shortly after a son of 
Murat came in, an elderly man, and his son followed after; 
they were the only ones here of the emperor's family. Below 
a great crowd was singing ; all eyes were turned toward the 
imperial tribune. I sat there enjoying the scene, and full of 
thought, too, of the changes in my life. I thought of my child- 
hood in poverty in the little house at Odense, — and now 
here ! 

On the way home people stood by the road to see the Danish 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



525 



Crown Prince. At dinner that day with him, he remembered 
that the day after, the second of April, was my birthday, and 
he drank the health of my new year that was to begin on the 
morrow. 

The festival day, which my friends among men and women 
always make so bright when I am in Denmark, with flowers, 
books, and pictures, blossomed about me now in my room ; I 
expected it would be very different in a strange land, but this 
was not the case, for from, home there came in the morning 
many letters and telegrams from the Collins in Copenhagen. 
All my dear friends were thinking of me, and later in the day 
Denmark's Crown Prince honored me with a visit. I dined 
with our consul, where I found a company of many of my coun- 
trymen who drank my health. 

When I came home to my hotel late in the evening, there 
sat there awaiting me a countryman residing in Paris with a 
great bouquet of flowers from Madame Melchior of Copen- 
hagen. He had received a letter in the morning telling him 
to bring me such a one, but the whole day passed with his in- 
quiring for my lodgings, which he did not find till evening. I 
was happy as a child, and in the midst of my pleasure there 
came, as so often with me, the thought : I have too much hap- 
piness ! it must some time slip away, and heavy trials come — 
how shall I then bear those ? There is an uneasiness in being 
so lifted up and endowed with such wealth of fortune. 

I heard for the first time Christina Nilsson : she appeared 
in " Martha." I was pleased with her dramatic gifts and en- 
raptured with her delightful voice. I paid her a visit, and found 
we were not strangers to one another. When I read in the 
papers of her first appearance, the fortune which rained down 
on the young Swedish maiden, born so poor and yet so rich, I 
felt great interest for her, and wrote to one of my friends in 
Paris that when he met Mile. Nilsson he must mention me to 
her, and say that when I should go there I should ask the 
privilege of visiting her. She replied that we were already old 
friends ; that she lived with a Norwegian family where I had 
been one day with Bjornstjerne Bjornson, and had heard me 
read a few of my Wonder Stories, and that she had been intro- 
duced to me as a young Swedish girl who was studying music 



526 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

and would one day go upon the stage ; yes^ I had given her a 
little cutting of paper, when I was snipping out something for 
some children who were in the room. At hearing that, I sud- 
denly recalled a morning visit in Paris, where I had read and 
had cut out some paper things. I remembered talking there 
with a young lady who was some time to appear in opera, but 
it had escaped my mind ; I did not remember more of her ; 
but now I stood before her and was received gladly, as a 
friend ; she gave me her portrait, and wrote in French some 
generous, kind words. 

A letter of introduction took me to Rossini, whom I had not 
before this seen or conversed with. He was so polite as to 
say that he was well acquainted with my name, that I needed 
no letter of introduction. We talked about Danish music ; he 
had heard Gade's name, he said. Siboni he had known per- 
sonally, and his son, the composer, had visited him. He asked 
me next if I would translate for him a piece from a newspaper 
which the Austrian Minister had sent him, in which it was 
mentioned that on the fifteenth of April there would be given 
at Vienna a concert, on the occasion of laying the corner-stone 
of a monument to Mozart, and that there would be brought 
out two new pieces of music by Rossini, — " Christmas," and, 
if I remember rightly, " The Battle of the Giants." During our 
conversation a new caller came, and to him he spoke in Ital- 
ian. I heard him say that I was " una poeta Tedesco ! " I cor- 
rected him to " Danese," when he looked at me and continued, 
" but Denmark belongs to Germany ! " Then the stranger in- 
terrupted with the explanation: "The two lands have lately 
been at war with one another." Rossini smiled good-nat- 
uredly, and asked me to forgive his ignorance of geography. 
He gave me his portrait card, wrote his name on it, and asked 
me to write mine and my address, when he would give me an 
invitation to one of his musical evenings. 

The King of Denmark's birthday, the eighth of April, I spent 
with my countrywoman, Madame the Viscountess Robereda, 
daughter of the deceased Danish Minister of the Marine Zahrt- 
mann. I learned, in making my way thither, how much differ- 
ence it may make in a great populous city if one suddenly turns 
to the right or to the left. The place to which I was to go lay 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



527 



by the Porte Etoile, on the left side. I went from Place de la 
Concorde an hour before the time, in order to look at the mul- 
titude promenading the Champs d'Elysees The crowd pressed 
on along the broad road, passing on both sides : one carriage 
followed another, — elegant equipages from the drive in the 
Bois de Boulogne. They increased all the way up to the Porte 
Etoile, where it seemed to me impossible to cross without being 
run over, and yet I must get over to the opposite side. For a 
whole hour I hunted for a good crossing-place. Here and there 
a man accomplished the act, but I dared not venture. I could 
see the house where I was to go in, but I could not see any pos- 
sibility of getting across to it. The clock had already passed 
the appointed time, when my good genius again came to me, 
or rather it was sent, — a heavily laden wagon drawn by six 
horses, that was going across at a slow pace, and so made a 
bulwark, as it were, against all the dashing equipages, and I 
walked on the lee of this very safely, and so got across to 
where I wanted to be. 

As we sat at table a great storm sprang up, and soon the 
lightning flashed so that all the lights in the room lost their 
power. It was a magnificent sight to look out over Paris, 
which now lay shrouded in darkness, and then suddenly 
blazed as with a dart of sunlight. The rain did not lessen. 
It was impossible to get a carriage, and the storm promised 
to hold far into the night. All the omnibuses were full, all 
the carriages taken up, — so said the servants and porter. 
A guest chamber was offered me, but I was quite certain 
I myself could find a carriage, so I ran across the place and 
into the broad drive-way, but no carriage was to be found, and 
on all the omnibuses was the word complet. The rain poured 
down, and it was half after one before I reached my hotel ; 
there was not a dry thread upon me. I was as wet as if I had 
gone through the Seine. 

My able fellow-countryman, the artist Lorenz Fr.61ich, who 
as an artist has also in France a well known and honored 
name, had just begun upon some illustrations for a number of 
my later stories which had lacked pictures. He worked with 
great pleasure on the book. He had a happy home, a noble 
wife, and a charming little girl, the original of " Baby," in the 



528 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

picture-book, 1 which all France knows well. At his table I 
met the writer Sauvage, who said that he would give dramatic 
treatment to the idea contained in the Wonder Story, "The 
Galoshes of Fortune," and show the falsity of the position 
taken by so many, that the old times were better than the 
new. He showed me a letter he had received from Jules S'an- 
deau, in which were the words, " You are fortunate in dining 
with Andersen ; he is a poet full of grace, and a true Prosaist ! 
He is like Haydn in music. I am delighted with what I know 
of his, and, to name a single one, with 'The Little Sea-maid.' " 

Before I left Paris, I was permitted a great pleasure, — an 
honor I received from Vienna, sent by the Emperor Maxi- 
milian in Mexico, — the commander's order of Notre Dame 
de Gaudeloupe ; the letter which accompanied it said that the 
order was bestowed upon me in recognition of my poetic writ- 
ings. The noble, richly gifted, and soon so ill-fated Emperor 
had remembered me and wished to give me pleasure. I re- 
membered an evening many years ago, when in the Emperor's 
palace at Vienna with his mother, the Archduchess Sophia, I 
read some of my stories ; two young men came in who were 
very friendly and talked to me : it was Prince Maximilian and 
his brother, now the Emperor of Austria. 

The thirteenth of April I left Paris, and in the afternoon 
reached Tours. The whole journey long the spring greeted 
me with blossoming fruit-trees ; and when the day after 1 came 
to Bordeaux, there was a luxuriant display in the Botanical 
Garden. All the trees, southern and northern, were in their 
glory, the blossoms gave forth their fragrance, the gold-fish 
sported by hundreds in the canal. I was again in my accus- 
tomed Hotel Richelieu, and saw once more my countrymen 
and my French friends, among whom I especially received 
great attention and kindness from the litterateur George Amee, 
and the musician Ernst Redan. I spent a few* lively evenings 
with them. Redan played from Schumann ; Amee read in 
French several of my stories and the entire "Picture-book 
without Pictures " ; a young Frenchman who listened was so 
overcome that tears flowed down his cheeks, and, to my sur- 
prise, seized my hand and kissed it. 

1 In its English form the book is Rosy on her Travels. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 529 

Through George Amee I received an invitation from the 
commander, General Dumas, who had formerly served in Af- 
rica, and has in the " Revue de deux Mondes " written in an 
interesting way of Algiers and the Arabs. He spoke warmly 
and appreciatingly of the Danish soldiers' bravery, which did 
my heart good, as when one hears his own kin praised. He 
invited me to share his box at the opera, and I was there sev- 
eral times and enjoyed his kindness. 

On the twenty-fifth of every month a steamer leaves Bor- 
deaux for Lisbon. I had already announced my coming to 
O'Neill by the vessel which would reach there the twenty- 
eighth of April. The weather meanwhile was very stormy. I 
knew the Spanish sea offered no pleasure excursion, but it 
was not much better to go through uneasy Spain, where the 
railway between Madrid and the border of Portugal was not 
yet completed. Then I heard that Ristori was at Bordeaux, 
and would appear one of the first evenings as Medea, and 
also as Marie Stuart. I have previously mentioned how she 
enraptured me when I saw her in London as Lady Macbeth. 
I must see her again, give a few days to a stay in Bordeaux, 
give up the sea voyage, and go through Spain to Portugal. 

Ristori's Medea was magnificent, never to be forgotten ; 
equally so her Lady Macbeth. 

My departure was arranged, and the journal "La Gironde," 
which afterward came to hand, spoke very courteously of me 
and my stay in Bordeaux. When I left I received from the 
learned Frenchman Michel, who had known my celebrated 
countrymen Brondsted and Fiin Magnussen, his rendering in 
French of the Basque popular tales, which I thus could read 
on my journey through the Basque country. Tunnel followed 
tunnel \ it was wild and lonely, with single places here and 
there, and small black towns. We came by Burgos to Mad- 
rid. During my former visit the city did not attract me, and 
still less did it this time ; I felt myself alone and unhappy. 
The government forces had got the better of the revolutionary 
movement, but how easily and how soon this might break out ! 
and so it did but a few weeks after I had reached Lisbon. 
The telegrams announced bloody fighting in the streets and 
lanes. I was exceedingly desirous to get away, but the railway 
34 



530 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

to the Portuguese boundary was not yet open, and to engage a 
place in the mail wagon I must wait five days. 

Thursday evening, the third of May, I finally took my leave. 
A young lawyer from Lisbon was my only travelling com- 
panion : he spoke French a little, and was very kind and con- 
siderate. It was a moonlit night. We went over the cam- 
pagna, — past single, solitary ruins. A never-to-be forgotten 
romantic character belonged to it all. In the early morning 
we passed the river Tagus, and later in the day pretty wooded 
tracts ; it was nearly evening before we began to cross the 
mountains, and we dined at Truxillo, Pizarro's birthplace. At 
the post-houses one could not be sure of getting anything but 
chocolate, and my companion and I therefore carried wine 
and provisions with us, so that we lacked nothing but rest at 
night ; that was not to be thought of, so broken up was the 
way. The carriage stuck and swung about, we went over 
great stones and into deep ruts, and at last at Merida we 
came to the railway, reaching it early in the morning before 
the sun was up. 

My travelling companion took me through a number of . 
streets and lanes to see some ruins which had come down from 
the time of the Romans. I was so fagged out, so very indif- 
ferent to seeing any shows, that I went along reluctantly with 
stumbling steps, and looked with sleepy eyes on the old stones ; 
it was much more delightful to hear the locomotive's whistle 
and see the steam curling up. We had only a short distance 
to go, and we were in the large Spanish border town Badajos. 
Here, in a good hotel and with an irreproachable breakfast, I 
got my vigor back, and after a few hours' rest we were able to 
continue the journey, and so we came to Lisbon early in the 
morning. 

To go from Spain into Portugal is like flying from the Mid- 
dle Ages into the present era. All about were whitewashed, 
friendly looking houses, hedged about by trees ; and at the 
larger stations refreshments could be had, while in the night 
we found a chance to rest in the roomy railway carriage. 

We were a day and night reaching Lisbon. My attentive 
travelling companion procured a carriage for me, and bade 
the coachman take me to the Hotel Durand, where I would 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



531 



be close by Tolades O'Neill's offices. So far all was very well ; 
but not when I came to the hotel, for all the rooms were 
taken, and I heard that O'Neill's establishment and offices 
were not his lodging place \ that he had his home half a mile 
(Danish) outside of Lisbon, at his country-seat " Pinieros." 
It was Sunday, and no one came to town on that day. Tired 
as I was, I must take a carriage and drive out there. It was 
on one of the heights by the Alcantara Valley, hard by the 
great aqueduct, " Arcos dos Aquas Livres." 

I was most cordially welcomed by the friend of my youth, 
and by his wife and sons. They had so confidently expected 
me by the French steamship that they had gone to meet it. 
The Danish ships that lay in the Tagus had raised the Danne- 
brog as a greeting to me. 

The garden was still in full flower, with roses and gerani- 
ums \ climbing plants and passion-flowers hung over the 
walls and hedges. The elder-tree's white blossoms against 
the red pomegranate's gave me the Danish colors ; in the 
grain appeared the red poppy and the blue chicory, so that I 
could fancy I saw a piece of field from home, but here it was 
hedged about by high cactus and solemn cypresses. The 
wind whistled nearly every night as at home in the autumn 
time. " It is the coast wind that blows and makes Portugal 
blessed and healthy," they said. 

I had read of Lisbon's narrow, crooked streets, where wild 
dogs feasted on the carcasses left to rot. I saw a light, hand- 
some town with broad streets, and houses whose walls were 
often decorated with shining slabs of porcelain. 

One of the most noted of the living authors in Portugal is 
Antonio Feliciano de Castilho ; he has married a Danish 
lady, Miss Vidal. I had thus a fellow-countrywoman and a 
great writer to visit. George O'Neill took me to them. 

Castilho was born at the beginning of this century. In 
his sixth year he caught the small-pox and lost his sight by 
it ; but he was seized with a fervent desire to study ; his rich 
endowment helped him, and he devoted himself especially to 
grammar, history, philosophy, and Greek. When not quite 
fourteen he wrote Latin verse which won high praise, and 
shortly after followed writings in his mother tongue ; but he 



532 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



devoted himself most to the study of botany. With his brother, 
who was eyes for him, he wandered in the charming country 
about Coimbra and took in all the beauty of nature, so that 
he sang of it in his poem " Spring." At Coimbra too he 
wrote the poem "Echo e Narcisso," which in a few years ran 
through several editions. He translated " Ovid," and showed 
great poetic power. A young lady, Maria Isabel de Buena 
Coimbra, was educated at a Benedictine nunnery near Oporto, 
where she remained some time after her education was com- 
pleted. She was acquainted with classic and modern authors ; 
she read the poem " Echo e Narcisso," and wrote, without giv- 
ing her name to the author, " Should Echo be found, would 
you then resemble Narcissus ? " 

With this began a correspondence between Castilho and 
the unknown writer. After a time he asked if he might ven- 
ture to inquire her name. She gave it ; the correspondence 
continued, and in the year 1834 they were betrothed and mar- 
ried. Three years afterward she died. The poem which he 
wrote to her memory, is placed by his countrymen beside the 
best things in their literature. He afterward married Char- 
lotte Vidal, whose father was consul at Helsingor. By her 
aid Castilho translated into Portuguese several Danish poems, 
such as some from Baggesen, Oehlenschlager, and Boye. 

I was received into his house as an old acquaintance and 
friend. The good poet talked with great vivacity, he was full 
of youth and freshness. He was at work now upon a trans- 
lation of "Virgil." His son, also a writer, aided his blind 
father. The daughter has fine eyes, that shine with the light 
of the south. I improvised a poem on them ; stars by day 
they were, brighter than the stars of night. Castilho and his 
family soon gave me the pleasure of a return visit at Pinieros. 
I received from him one or two letters, dictated in French, 
and signed by his own hand. My letters to him I wrote in 
Danish ; he says, therefore, in one of his, — " We talk with one 
another like Pyramus and Thisbe — my wife the wall." With 
Madame Castilho's help, Danish letters and literature were 
imparted to the blind poet. 

I had been several weeks at Pinieros and felt myself at 
home with these dear Portuguese friends. Madame O'Neill 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 533 

gave interesting reminiscences of her childhood, dating from 
Don Miguel's time ; the oldest of her sons, George, played 
the piano well, read much, and took great interest in nature ; 
the younger, Arthur, was a bright, handsome boy, quick at 
vaulting on his horse and riding away, and both of them were 
very attentive to me. The father, my friend George O'Neill, 
spent the whole day at his counting-room ; he was at the head 
of the house Tolades O'Neill, and Consul for Denmark and 
other greater countries. In the evening we saw him at home, 
always happy and lively ; we talked Danish together, of our 
old times in Denmark \ then the guitar was taken down, or 
his son George took his place at the harpsichord, when the 
brothers sang with fine rich voices out of " Martha " and 
" Rigoletto." I put confidence in O'Neill ; it seemed to us as 
if we were fellow-countrymen and brothers. 

We had been here already a month together ; I wanted now 
to see a still more fertile and more beautiful portion of Por- 
tugal. Carlos O'Neill had invited me to his pretty villa, Bone- 
gos, near Setubal. His brother George with his wife and sons 
accompanied me. We went by steamer across the broad Ta- 
gus, and then took the railway straight to Setubal, which lies 
right on the ocean among orange groves and hills. 

Carlos O'Neill's carriage took us from the railway station to 
his villa. It was the old hi^hw r av from Lisbon to the southern 
part of the country which we were passing over, and it wound 
quite like a road in Spain ; soon it w r as so small that only a 
single carriage could go, then it was wide enough for four 
carriages ; it rose on rocky ground and then sank for a long 
distance in deep sand, set with flowering aloes. Before us 
rose the fortress of Palmella, like a great ruin ; nearer, under 
shady trees, was the desolate, lonely monastery Brancana, and 
hard by was O'Neill's villa. Here I stepped into a well or- 
dered, happy home. Every view from my balcony window 
looked out on palm-trees overshadowing fountains ; the 
ocean lay before the terrace, with its rich diversity of color ; 
the pepper-trees stood like weeping- willows above the reser- 
voirs of water, where gold-fish swam about among the water- 
lilies ; further on was an orange grove, and beyond that, still 
further, was the vineyard. 



534 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



I looked out over the town of Setubal and the bay with 
its ships, and the white sand hills were set against the blue 
ocean. After every warm day, there was a breeze at evening 
that brought rest and coolness. Darkness fell, but the stars 
came forth and shone wondrous clear, and then the countless 
fire-flies darted about over trees and bushes. 

They were affectionate, home-loving people with whom I 
lived, and they showed me the greatest attention and consid- 
eration. The son, young Carlos, a fine fellow with dark blue 
eyes and coal-black hair, was my faithful guide and escort on 
all my expeditions to the hills, he on his horse, I on an ass. 
He had had one sister ; it was only a few months since that 
God had called her to Himself; she was fourteen years old, 
the joy of the household. The loss of her had clouded the 
sunshine in what had been her father's merry home. 

We lived very quietly, but for me, there was a rich variety. 
Young Carlos and I rode through lemon groves, where pome- 
granates and magnolias were brilliant with flowers ; we visited 
a few deserted monasteries, and took a view from Palmella 
out over the great cork groves to the'Tagus, Lisbon, and the 
Cintra mountains. We took a sail out over the open sea to the 
grotto at Mount Arabida, and visited the town of Troja, now 
buried under sand hills. The Phoenicians founded it ; the 
Romans afterward dwelt there, and made salt in the same way 
as it still is obtained : the great remains show that. The sand 
hills were covered with a growth of bushes, thistles, and 
flowers that with us flourish in greenhouses. Where we 
stopped on the shore great heaps of stones were piled up, bal- 
last for ships, which here in the bay had exchanged their lad- 
ing for salt ; stones from Denmark, Sweden, Russia, China : 
quite a wonder story might be written about that. We walked 
about in this desolate place, and climbed the sand hills and 
looked out on the ocean. I looked over the water — the 
nearest coast was America. I thought of my friends there, 
Marcus Spring and his good wife ; of Longfellow, the great 
poet of " Hiawatha" and "Evangeline;" I thought of what 
America had given us in Washington Irving and Cooper, — 
wine of the soul from yonder hemisphere : I never shall go 
there, I have such terror of the water ; but my thoughts went 
thither from the dimes at Troja, the Portuguese Pompeii. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 535 

I saw a bull-fight at Setubal, innocent and bloodless by the 
side of Spanish ones- I saw too the popular St. Anthony's 
feast, with torches in the streets, singing and processions. I 
spent a delightful month, full of lively occupation in this 
beautiful Setubal. The visit here and at Pinieros had already 
occupied half the time I had devoted to my stay in Por- 
tugal, and I desired also before I left to visit Coimbra and 
Cintra. I must leave or I should be spending the whole 
winter. 

The journey by diligence through the burning-hot, unquiet 
Spain was not advisable ; it was more sensible to go by 
steamer from Lisbon to Bordeaux, but I dared not set out 
till the equinoctial storms were over. How would the journey 
from France be arranged ? What dimensions would the war in 
Germany take ? Would France enter it ? I saw that the jour- 
ney home would be full of uneasiness, and I came near spend- 
ing the winter in Portugal, but to travel far away from friends 
and live in a hotel were not at all pleasant to think of, while 
to stay as a guest several months — I thought of the old 
proverb : " The welcome guest becomes tiresome when he sits 
too long in the strange house." I came therefore to the con- 
clusion to try the sea voyage, and see what a war-vexed time 
would bring to pass. In the middle of August a steamer 
came from Rio Janeiro to Lisbon, and went immediately on to 
Bordeaux ; so I determined to take that after a visit to Coim- 
bra, and a stay of a week or two in charming Cintra. 

It was hard to leave pleasant Bonegos, and the amiable 
people there. Carlos O'Neill, father and son, accompanied me 
to Lisbon, and from here, with the brothers George and Jose 
O'Neill, I made a journey first to Aveiro, and thence to the 
romantically placed Coimbra, the university town of Portugal. ■ 
It lies up on the side of a mountain, one street above another, 
several of the houses rising three or four stories over those 
below. The streets are narrow and crooked ; steep stone 
steps lead between separate buildings from one street up into 
the next. Here are a great many of the shops and book- 
stalls. Everywhere I saw students, all dressed in a kind of 
mediaeval costume, — a long black gown, a short cape, and a 
Polish cap hanging down. I saw a company of the lively 



536 * THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

youths setting out with guitar or gun over the shoulder, bound 
for the woods and the mountains. 

The university, an extensive building, occupies the highest 
point of the town ; from it one looks out over groves of 
oranges, cypresses, and cork-trees. Far down below, a great 
bridge of masonry led over the Mandego River to the nun- 
nery of Santa Clara and La Quinta dos lagrimas ; the castle 
lies half in ruins where the beautiful, unfortunate Inez de 
Castro and her innocent child were murdered. The fountain 
still bubbles in the garden where Inez and her husband, Don 
Pedro, so often sat under the tall cypresses that still cast their 
shade. On a marble tablet is written the verse about Inez 
which Camoens wrote in his " Lusiad." 

During my visit at Coimbra, there was a festival at the uni- 
versity' ; a young man got his " Doctor's hat." The Professor 
of the History of Literature had heard that I was in Coimbra, 
and he honored me with a visit. He took me to the festival, 
and I saw almost all the buildings, — the beautiful chapel, 
the great hall, and the library. 

From Coimbra I returned to Lisbon, in order to go to Cin- 
tra, the prettiest, most enthusiastically praised part of Portugal. 
" The new paradise," Byron called it. " Spring has her throne 
here," sings the Portuguese Garret. 

The road thither from Lisbon leads over a poor country, 
but suddenly rises before one a part of Armidas, — the 
enchanted garden of Cintra, — with its umbrageous, mighty 
trees, its rushing waters, its romantic country fields. One says 
rightly, that every nation finds here a bit of its own country. 
I found Danish woods, clover, and forget-me-nots. I believe 
that I found also many familiar reminders of other countries, — 
England with its green sward ; the Brocken's wild rocks hurled 
about ; now I saw Setubal's flowers with their rich variety 
of color ; and again, far up in the North, Lecksand's birch 
groves. From the road one can look out over the little town, 
with the old castle, where the reigning King Louis lives. One 
sees the champaigns, and the distant cloister MafTra. A beau- 
tiful and picturesque place high up on the hill, is the summer 
residence of King Fernando, once a monastery. The road, 
began among cactus, chestnuts, and bananas, ends among birch 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



537 



and pine, growing among wild rocks that lie tossed about. 
You can look far out to the mountains beyond the Tagus, and 
away over the great ocean. 

My friend Jose O'Neill had his country-seat in the para- 
disaical Cintra ; I was his welcome guest, and I had another 
friend here in the English Consul, Lytton, son of Bulwer Lyt- 
ton. I had in Copenhagen made the acquaintance of young 
Lytton, who is himself a graceful writer. He came to see me 
in the most cordial manner, and made my stay here very 
pleasant. With him and his lovely wife I saw much of the 
charming country about Cintra. 

I had also the pleasure of meeting with my noble country- 
woman, Madame the Vicountess Roberda nee Zahrtmann, 
whom I had visited in Paris on my way hither. She invited 
me to the house of Count Armeida, and I found myself in a 
circle of friendly and good people, from whom it was hard for 
me to tear myself away, as well as from my affectionate friend 
Jose \ but time was passing on, the steamer for Bordeaux would 
in a few days touch at Lisbon, and thither must I go. Stormy 
weather delayed the arrival of the vessel, arid I was forced to 
wait a few days, with no pleasurable anticipations of my sea 
journey. 

Early in the morning of Tuesday, the fourteenth of August, 
we were informed that the steamer Navarro had arrived, and 
was taking goods and passengers on board. It was an exceed- 
ingly large vessel, — the largest I had ever been on, — a great 
floating hotel. George O'Neill introduced me to the captain 
and a few of the officers, bespeaking the best attention for me, 
laughed, and jested, and pressed my hand as we left \ I was 
sorrowful indeed " but we should see each other often ! " 

The signal was given, the anchor was raised, the steam 
whistled, and soon we were out on the Atlantic Ocean \ the 
ship rose and fell, the waves rolled greater and greater. The 
storm had ceased its movements, -but not the sea. I took my 
place at the table, but at the same moment must needs rise 
quickly and get out into the fresh air, where I sat suffering 
from the motion of the ship, which I had every reason to ex- 
pect would be worse in the Spanish sea. 

It was soon evening, the stars came out, the air was very 



538 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

cold. I dared not venture into my state-room, but entered 
the dining saloon, where toward midnight I was the only one 
remaining. The lights were put out ; I knew the rolling of the 
sea, the movement of the machinery, the sounding of the sig- 
nal bell, and the answer that came. I thought upon the might 
of the sea, the might of fire, and I had quite too vivid recollec- 
tions of the friend of my youth, Jette Wulff's fearful death 
on her voyage to America. And as I lay there a sea struck 
us midship ; it was as if we suddenly were stopped, as if the 
steam held its breath. It was only a moment, and again the 
engine gave its wonted sound and trembling motion ; but in- 
voluntarily there was pictured in my thoughts, and that more 
and more forcibly, a shipwreck, with the water upheaving, and 
we sinking and sinking. How long would consciousness and 
the death agony last ? I had all the torment of it, as this fan- 
tasy took possession of me. I could no longer endure it, and 
rushed up upon deck, pushed the sail aside at the gunwale, and 
looked out upon what splendor ! what majesty ! — - the rolling 
sea shone as if on fire ; the great waves gleamed with phos- 
phorus ; it was as if we went gliding over a sea of fire. I was 
so overwhelmed by this grandeur that in a moment my fear 
of death had vanished. The peril was not greater nor less 
than it had been all along, but now I did not think of it Fancy 
had taken another direction. " Is it really so important," I 
asked myself, " that I should live any longer ? Were Death to 
come to-night, in what majesty and glory he would come." I 
stood for a long time in the starry night, and looked out on 
the grand, rolling world's sea, and when I again sought the 
saloon for rest, my soul was happy and refreshed by resigna- 
tion to God's will. 

I slept, and when the next morning I went up on deck I 
felt no more sea-sickness, and began to take pleasure in look- 
ing out on the swelling water. Toward evening this seemed 
to grow less ; and next morning, when we were in the midst 
of the Spanish sea, which I had especially dreaded, the wind 
died down ; the water lay like a piece of silk stretched out ; it 
was as smooth as if we were on a lake. Surely I was For- 
tune's child : such a voyage I had not expected nor dared to 
think of. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



539 



The next morning, the fourth day I had spent on board, we 
sighted the light-house on the rocky heights at the mouth of 
the Gironde. We had heard at Lisbon that the cholera was 
in Bordeaux, though this was said doubtfully. The pilot who 
came aboard assured us that the condition of health there 
was excellent : it was the first greeting we received, and was a 
very joyful one to us. 

The passage up the river took several hours • it was seven 
o'clock in the evening before we reached Bordeaux. The por- 
ter from the hotel where I had stopped before knew me ; the 
coach was in waiting, and I was soon to see dear friends. The 
excellent, quick minded Amee I met afterward with Redan, 
Amiat, and several gifted French friends. Music, reading, and 
animated conversation, made the time pass quickly. 

With one of my countrymen, I went one day through one of 
the smaller streets, and saw there at a book-stall the French 
translation of "The Picture-book without Pictures." I asked 
the price. " One franc," answered the man. " That is what a 
new copy costs," said I, " but this is an old, worn one." 

" Yes, but this book is sold out," said the book-seller. " It is 
very much inquired after j it is quite a famous book, by Ander- 
sen, who is now in Spain \ there was a commendatory piece 
about him and this book in ' La Gironde ' day before yester- 
day." At that my friend could not keep back, and said that 
I was Andersen, and the book-seller made a low, civil bow, as 
his wife did also. 

My friends urged me to extend my stay here, and to give 
up Paris, where the cholera was ; that I would gladly have 
done, but the shortest way home led by Paris. I went to the 
Grand Hotel on the Boulevard, said to be the healthiest quar- 
ter ; but remained only a day and night, visited no one, and 
did not go to the theatre, but kept quiet, and then the next 
' evening set out by rail through France, where they said that 
the cholera was in nearly every town, and came to Cologne, 
where nobody spoke of the cholera, for the town was quite free 
from it. 

I went to Hamburg, where I believed myself quite beyond 
the plague, and there I stayed a few days for rest, went to the 
theatre, and was hospitably entertained at a supper just before 



54-0 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

the morning of my departure. I heard accidentally, and read 
afterward the confirmation in the papers, that at this very 
time the cholera was at its height here ; that men were dying 
by the hundred every day, while in great Paris, which I had 
hurried away from, the deaths were not more than fourteen a 
day. I was most disagreeably affected, and immediately be- 
gan to diet, had pains in my stomach, and an unquiet night, 
and early the next morning I fled through the Grand Duchy, 
and in the afternoon was in Denmark and in my native town 
of Odense. 

My first visit was to the Bishop's house, to my noble, learned 
friend Bishop Engelstoft, where I knew I should find the most 
cordial welcome. With him I saw the old landmarks, — the 
house where I had spent my childhood, and St. Knud's Church, 
where I stood for Confirmation, and where, in the church- 
yard, my father lay buried. Many friends in my native place 
followed me in the afternoon to the station, as I wished to be 
at Soro that evening, when I would surprise good Madame 
Ingemann with an unexpected visit \ but at the station I heard 
that only an hour or two before she had come by the train 
from Copenhagen, where this old, deaf, and almost blind lady 
had undergone an operation on her eyes, and seemed ex- 
hausted and depressed. I gave up the visit, and took up my 
quarters at the little inn by the station. They knew nothing 
of mattresses for beds, but had only oppressively hot feather 
beds ; so I put one at the bottom, covered it with a straw 
sack, and put my plaid on top of that, and so made comforta- 
ble, I slept till the early morning, when I took the train to 
Roeskilde, to my friends Hartmann and his wife. The day 
after T was in Copenhagen. 

My travelling was over, and again I was to grow fast in the 
home soil, drink in its sunshine, feel the sharp^ winds, live in 
the hubbub, and know nothing of wandering except perhaps in 
a wonder story ; but I was also to live among the great things 
of the good, the true, and the beautiful, with which our Lord 
has gifted my native land. 

My faithful friends, the Melchiors, received me at the station 
and took me to their country-seat " Rolighed " (Quiet), just 
outside the town. Above the door were flowers woven into 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



541 



the word " Welcome ! " the Dannebrog flag waved. From the 
balcony before my room I looked out over the Sound, which 
was filled with sail and steamships. I met my friends, men 
and women. A few evenings were so mild and quiet, as if in 
southern latitudes, that the candles were lighted on the table 
under the high trees in the garden : multitudes of fire-flies 
were here, and I could easily have fancied myself at Bonegos, 
in Portugal. All the kindness which fortune and affection 
could give one was given me here ; they were charming days, 
and I have renewed them since. 

Among the distinguished men whom I met here was a 
young man whose genius I esteemed and admired, the painter 
Carl Bloch. We had, during my last visit in Rome, met a 
single time, and at home I came to appreciate his renown as 
an artist and his estimable character as a man. At Rolighed 
our friendship was knit more closely, and the new stories 
which appeared at the close of the year were dedicated to him. 
In the copy which I sent him I wrote, — 

CARL BLOCH. 

It was an Exhibition time at Charlottesburg, 

And everything was new, charming, and fair. 

A picture took my fancy, — a monk stood, young and clever, 

And looked upon two married folk, who homeward rode, 

Mounted on asses, and both with happy faces ; 

And the young monk's soul and passion thoughts 

Grew dark with sorrow looking on the scene, — 

And one felt sure this painter had a heart. 

Each year came forth a new and glorious work ; 

Samson we saw, set midst the Philistines ; 

We saw " The Barber," and " The Roman Boy ; " 

The grief of life and humor truly shown. 

And now " Prometheus " came, and from men's eyes 

Melted the snow — how great that picture was ! 

My happiness I shared with Copenhagen. 

And then we met. Thou wert just what I thought : 

A child in soul and yet so manly-wise ; 

Modest, and doubting of thy own great strength, 

Yet very sure of what our Lord had bade thee, 

For otherwise such work could ne'er be done. 

And since I found thy love, take thou my flowers 

That tell my pleasure and my heart's good-will. 



542 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

One of the first days after my arrival home, I was graciously 
and cordially, as ever, received by the royal family, — at the end 
of the very week when the king's noble and amiable daughter 
Dagmar left Denmark and became Russia's Grand Duchess. 
I had one more talk with her in her ancestral home. 

As she left, I stood in the crowd of men on the wharf where 
she, with her royal parents, went on board. She saw me, 
stepped up to me and shook my hand warmly. Tears started 
from my eyes : they were in my heart for our young princess. 
Everything promises for her happiness ; an excellent family 
like that she left, is that she has entered. A fortunate pair are 
she and her noble husband. 

I had not yet since my return home seen good Madame 
Ingemann. I hastened out to her. She was overjoyed at 
the recovery of her sight ; how glad too she was in thought at 
the anticipation of a still better sight, the meeting again with 
Ingemann. From Soro I went to Holsteinborg. One day 
the lady of the place took me to see a poor paralytic girl, who 
lived near by in a neat little house by the road-side, but had a 
very poor view, since the house was situated on low ground 
and a high bank was thrown up before it. The sun never 
shone into the room because the window looked north. This 
could be helped, thought the kind lady of the castle. She had 
the poor paralytic brought up to the manor one day, and 
meanwhile sent masons to the house, and had them break the 
wall through to the south, and insert a window there, and now 
the sun shone into the room. The sick girl came to her home 
and sat there in the sunshine \ she could see the woods and 
the shore, the world grew wondrous large, and this just by one 
word of the gracious lady. 

" That word was so easy, the act so little," said she, and I too 
expressed my pleasure as I accompanied her who had done 
this and many another Christian act. I placed this among my 
small stories and called it " Kept close is not forgotten." 

On my return to Copenhagen I moved into my new apart- 
ment upon the King's New Market Place, Copenhagen's 
greatest and finest square, with the Royal Theatre, one of the 
least beautiful buildings, just before me ; but it is good inside, 
and bound to my affection by many memories. Perhaps it 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



543 



may please one and another of my friends on the other side 
of the water to hear of my home in Copenhagen. 

The house stands, as I said, on Kongen's Nytorv \ in the 
building is one of the largest and most frequented cafes of 
the town ■ in the first hall a refreshment room, and in the 
second a club-room. On the story with me a lawyer lives, 
while overhead is a photograph atelier; so it will be seen 
that I have meat and drink near by, have no want of society ; 
I cannot die away from a lawyer, and a photographer is at 
hand to secure my picture for posterity. I am certainly very 
well placed • my little apartment — I have only two rooms — 
is snug and sunny, and adorned with pictures, books, statues, 
and what my lady friends especially provide for me, flowers 
and something green, which are always there. In the Royal 
Theatre, at the Casino, I have every evening my pleasant seat. 
All classes of the community are kind and friendly in receiv- 
ing me into their circles. 

In Copenhagen it is the custom in several families that on 
a certain day in the week they see their friends at dinner or 
in the evening, but one is nevertheless free and can accept 
another invitation. I have almost from my student days so 
spent my noons. I will give here a short sketch of my vary- 
ing seven days of the week, and cut a silhouette picture of a 
few of my most intimate circles of friends. 

Monday calls me to some friends of many years' standing, — 
friends through good and evil days, State Councilor Edward 
Collin and family. Of him, his wife, and his children I have 
often spoken in " The Story of my Life \ " I will only add what 
the excellent Fredrika Bremer once said with great truth : 
" Madame Collin was the first Danish lady I saw and spoke 
with in Copenhagen, and she is the type to me of the noblest 
and best women that Denmark possesses. 

Tuesday takes me out of town to a half-country like place ; 
near to the shore lives the Drewsen family. Drewsen is the 
son-in-law of Collin's father. I have spoken before of his 
sons, and have sung of little Wiggo. The mother, Madame 
Ingeborg Drewsen, was always a steadfast, sympathetic sister 
to me, from the first time her father opened his house to me : 
a youthful, fresh spirit, a sparkling humor, and a fervor and 
depth are the gifts she has received from our Lord. 



544 THE ST0RY OF MY LIFE. 

On Wednesday I go to that home which early received me, 
even before my student days, and has continued thus to this 
time, while one after another of those I met there were called 
away to God, — Hans Christian Orsted's house ; he himself, 
the bright, gentle sun within, is gone ; his wife and richly 
gifted youngest daughter Mathilde are now the only ones left. 
From the earliest time I always read there whatever new 
thing I had written, or now write : it is as a memory of the 
days gone by. 

Thursday was the day at home at the elder Collin's house. 
I used to gather with all his children on that day. He too 
is gone, and this day takes me now to a home where the 
affection for me is likewise strong and considerate, where hus- 
band, wife, and children treat me as if I belonged to the family 
of Melchior. 

Friday also takes me back to a home full of early remem- 
brances, which I have with Henriette Wulff's sister, Madame 
Ida Koit. We have the same memories clustering about her 
parents' house. I have seen her as a child, as a mistress at 
home, and now as a loving grandmother ; and I have in her 
children and grandchildren devoted friends. 

Saturday was the day of meeting at Madame Neergaard's, 
where she was truly Danish and Christian in thought and good 
deeds that shone over her circle. God has called her away, 
and given me a home akin to this with the family at Basnos. 

Sunday I can describe by pointing back to my visit at Upsala 
and the serenade there, which was not for me but for the 
wise and musical Madame Henriques : her hospitable husband 
throws open his house to all that is good and worthy, while 
cordiality and music invite the guests. 

There ! there are the seven days of the week, and should it 
be noticed that it is the mother of the house whom I always 
put first, one will understand my thoughts — she is the very 
one who makes the table beautiful and spreads sunshine over 
the room. 

1867. 

One evening late in January, at the Students' Association, 
where hitherto I only had read my 'stories, two of these, 



THE STOR V OF MY LIFE. 



545 



11 The Butterfly " and " The Happy Family " were recited by 
Professor Hoedt, and received most hearty applause. The 
carefulness, the humor, and the dramatic manner with which 
he gave these little stories were qualities of good work. 

When Professor Hoedt was still a young student he ap- 
peared on the royal Danish stage as Ha?nlet and Solomon de 
Caus ; in what I recall most vividly as Toby, in " The Depu- 
ties," and as Harlequin in Heiberg's comedy, "The Invisible." 
At the social supper table at the Student's Association, where he 
had recited the two Wonder Stories mentioned above, he gave 
a viva for me, and said in the toast he offered that his first 
appearance as an actor had been at the Students' Associa- 
tion, and that in a student comedy by H. C. Andersen ; there- 
fore had he this evening, when after many years he stood again 
on the boards here, wished to recite a wonder story of Ander- 
sen's who had continued to be a member of the association, 
fresh and young, — yes, perhaps even younger than when first 
admitted. 

We got out now the old play bills that showed the represen- 
tations given by the students, and among these was found my 
comedy, " Long Bridge," which should not be confounded with 
my later drama, " On the Long Bridge." The first is a sort of 
reverie over all that in the course of years had transpired at 
Copenhagen, in the councils of literature, art, and the drama. 
The piece is quite akin to the French reverie style, which 
has since, with great effect, been introduced among us by Herr 
Erik Bogh ; but when I used it, it was a kind of art of which 
we at home knew nothing. I myself knew nothing of it \ it 
was an idea that came to me, a room into which I had admit- 
ted whatever had especially impressed me in the years that 
had passed and in the people who lived in them. 

Professor Hoedt was, as I have said, the first, with the ex- 
ception of myself, who had read my stories at the Students' As- 
sociation ; but from the Royal Theatre, as well as from the Ca- 
sino and from other private theatres, for some time back, a num- 
ber of my stories had been recited. The first who ventured it 
was the highly honored actress Miss Jiirgensen, whose dramatic 
faculty was so great, that while one evening she appeared with 
tragic majesty as Queen Bera in Oehlenschlager's tragedy, 
35 



54^ THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" Hagbarth and Signe," one was amused the next evening with 
her equally humorous rendering of the governess Miss Trumph- 
rnayer, in Heiberg's " April Snares. " The most celebrated art- 
ist in comedy on the Danish stage, Instructor Phister, the Pro- 
teus of manifold roles, created a complete dramatic work when 
he told the story of the " Emperor's New Clothes." 

The actor Nielsen, who took the part of Hakon Jarl and 
of Macbeth, recited in private circles, and upon his tour in 
Sweden and Norway, several of my stories. Our well known 
Michael Wiehe gave with an ardor, a naivete, and a humor 
unequaled by any, " It is certainly so," "Tip top," and " Jack 
the Dullard." Very like him, and touched with a child-like 
•nature, was the distinguished actor at the Casino, Christian 
Schmidt. Recently and very often it is the royal actor Mant- 
zius who has especially contributed to make my stories popular 
by his excellent dramatic talent. The gifted philosopher, Pro- 
fessor Rasmus Nielsen, in the days just before these, unfolded 
by his reading at the university the meaning in my two stories 
"The Snow Man," and "What the Good-man does is sure 
to be right." 

On my birthday, the second of April, my room was made 
delightful with flowers, pictures, and books. There was music 
and speaking at my friends' the Melchiors ; the spring sun 
shone without 5 within in my heart there was shining too. I 
looked back over the years that had fled : how much happiness 
had there not been granted me, but always rises the anxious 
doubt. I must think upon the old story about the gods who 
could be jealous of men, when they were exalted too much by 
their fortune, and so destroyed them. Yet that was in heathen 
times : now we live in Christian days, and " God is love." 

The great Exhibition at Paris had just opened. People 
from all lands were streaming to it. Fata Morgana's castle 
had been reared on the Champs de Mars, which riad been trans- 
formed into the most beautiful garden. I must go there and 
see the fairy tale of our time. By the eleventh of April I 
was in the train, going past Funen, through the Grand Duchy 
and .Germany, hurrying toward Paris. 

The exhibition palace had been built, but was still con- 
stantly growing. The buildings about it, complete gardens 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



547 



laid out with canals, grottoes, and water-falls were in busy 
preparation. Every day one saw a great progress. It all 
took possession of my soul. I came here almost daily, and 
met acquaintances and friends from different countries of the 
world. It was as if a great rendezvous had been appointed 
here. 

One day as I went out there, there came an elegantly 
dressed lady with her husband, a negro. She addressed me 
in a mixed speech of Swedo-English-German. She was born 
in Sweden, but had lived abroad of late ; she knew who I was 
from my portrait, she said, and introduced me to her husband, 
the famous actor, the negro Ira Aldridge, who was just now 
playing to the Parisians at the Odeon, where he took the role 
of Othello. I pressed the artist's hand, and we exchanged 
some friendly words in English. I confess it gave me great 
pleasure that one of Africa's gifted sons should greet me as a 
friend. There was a time when I should not have ventured 
to speak of such a thing, but my surroundings are now such 
that it is no mark of vanity, but of my pleasure in all that God 
has granted me, — the book of fortune indeed, and that my 
friends in distant lands will quickly understand. 

One of the gentlemen in the English department of the ex- 
hibition building invited me one day to dine with him at the 
Grand Hotel de Louvre, where I met the Englishman Baker, 
the discoverer of the source of the Nile. He was here with 
his faithful wife, who had accompanied him on that perilous 
journey, and had lent him faith, courage, and fortitude. To 
me was assigned the honor of taking Lady Baker in to dinner. 

King George of Greece was in Paris. I had the pleasure 
of seeing again the young King, whom I had known from his 
childhood in his royal father's house, where he had listened 
to my stories. A visit from him was expected at the Exhibi- 
tion. The Grecian division stood by chance next to the Dan- 
ish ; by a single step one went from Greece to Denmark. 
The passage was adorned with Greek flags upon the Grecian 
side and with the Danish flag upon the Danish. I was asked 
to write an inscription, and I wrote upon the spot a little verse, 
which was soon waving in large letters among the flags and 
banners. 



548 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

In the Danish division there were many photographic por- 
traits from Copenhagen, and a fine collection of busts in clay 
of eminent Danes. Many strangers had inquired for my 
picture and bust, without finding it. But this was no fault of 
the committee. The President, Chamberlain Wolffhagen told 
me that he had written repeatedly to Copenhagen, asking 
especially for two busts, one of the deceased State Councilor, 
the antiquarian Thomsen, and one of H. C. Andersen. The 
reply came that the busts which he desired did not exist in 
marble : then they were asked for in plaster, and there were 
sent Thomsen's bust and that of the Norwegian writer Bjorn- 
stjerne Bjornson, not Andersen's. 

Among my countrymen in Paris was Robert Wall, young 
and vivacious, yet one of those who have experienced heavy 
trials in youth, and it was this which especially interested me 
in him. His father had owned a place in Jutland, was well 
to do, and gave his children an excellent education. Circum- 
stances were changed, and at their father's death the children 
had to look out for themselves. Young Robert found a place 
in a merchant's counting-room in Aarhuus, when a letter 
came from his uncle, who lived in Melbourne, in Australia, 
who wished him to come and be a son to him. The young 
man immediately set out with high hopes and travelled thither 
safely, but on his arrival his uncle had lost his property and 
had suddenly become a poor man, so that Robert stood desti- 
tute, a stranger in a strange land. But his heart did not fail ; 
he tried various situations, all honorable, but all poor : trav- 
elled as a driver, washed in the gold mines, and when he had 
gotten together as much money as would take him back to 
Denmark, he hastened thither, where he described in a lively 
way Australian scenes, and wrote sketches of travel as a feuil- 
letonist in " Dagbladet." All this, carried on with spirit and a 
fresh youthfulness, won my interest, and my heart wishes for 
him a bright future. 

Oh the twenty-sixth of May, the silver wedding day of the 
royal pair, I wished to be in Copenhagen, and I desired to 
make my journey home lie by way of Le Locle in Switzerland. 
Before I left Paris I received an invitation from countrymen 
and Swedish and Norwegian friends to meet with them in a 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



549 



Scandinavian gathering. It was a repetition of the feast which 
Bjornstjerne Bjornson brought about for me when we last met 
here. The northern flags waved, King Christian's and King 
Carl's portraits were decorated with fresh flowers. Chamber- 
lain Wolffhagen proposed a health to the northern kings, and 
songs were sung. I read Wonder Stories and proposed a 
toast to northern poetry. 

From Paris to Neufchatel it is only a day's journey by rail. 
At sunset I came to the boundary of Switzerland. The Jura 
Mountains, clad w r ith oak, beech, and pine, rose before me. 
The way led now through tunnel after tunnel ; in many places 
the iron rails passed close by steep precipices ; one could look 
down far below and see houses and towns. The "lights trerri- 
bled there, the stars shone far above, and in the evening I 
was at Neufchatel, and soon up on the heights at Le Locle with 
my friend Louis Jiirgensen. 

The beech-trees stood with their fresh leaves, the bushes 
were green, but the snow fell, and every bush looked like a 
blossoming whitethorn. The cold increased, and I could not 
travel nor get to Copenhagen in time for the festival. A 
song of welcome, written from my heart, I sent home in a let- 
ter to the Crown Prince Frederick, who graciously delivered it 
to his royal parents. " From William Tell's land to the land 
of Palnatoke " flew my thoughts, with the best wishes of my 
heart. Jules Jiirgensen raised the Dannebrog, and in the bub- 
bling champagne we drank a toast in honor of the silver wed- 
ding of King Christian IX. and Queen Louise. 

A few days after I left my dear friends at Le Locle and 
was soon in Copenhagen. At the King's silver wedding, many 
were honored with honorable mention or with order. The 
King had graciously bestowed upon me the title of State 
Councilor. I tendered his majesty my profound thanks. The 
royal family was at Fredensborg. Princess Dagmar, now the 
Grand Princess of Russia, was here on a visit to her royal 
parents. I went out there ; it was not an audience day, but 
I was nevertheless received, and that with great warmth and 
kindness. The King asked me to stay to dinner, where I 
j met and talked with the amiable, noble Princess Dagmar. 
She told me that she had read a Russian edition of my stories, 



550 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

which she knew so well before in Danish, and so I had spent 
another delightful day with the King's family. 

It was warm summer, and not at all pleasant to be in the 
heated streets of the town. I became the guest of my friends 
the Melchiors, at Rolighed, and wrote there " Godfather's Pic- 
ture-book " and the story of " The Greenies," but there was al- 
ways coming up in my thoughts a desire to give in a wonder 
story my impression of the Paris Exhibition, the wonderful won- 
der story of our time, which is called so material. I needed 
to fix some point of departure for it, when suddenly there 
came to me a reminiscence of my visit to Paris in the spring of 
1866 when I was travelling to Lisbon. I stayed then at the 
Hotel Louvois, in the Place Louvois, by the Royal Library. 
There is a little garden there surrounding a fountain. One of 
the great trees had died, and so it had been torn up out of the 
earth and thrown aside ; near by was a heavy cart with a large 
vigorous tree brought in from the country to be planted here. 
" Poor tree ! poor Dryad ! " thought I ; " thou earnest from thy 
pleasant, fresh country air here, to drink in the gas and the lime 
dust and find thy death." There was a suggestion for a poem 
here, and it accompanied me to Holsteinborg, Basnos, and 
Glorup. I began to write it down, but was not satisfied with 
it. I had only seen the Exhibition at its beginning, and it was 
only now that it could be seen in its completeness. I felt a 
strong desire to go there again, but to journey to Paris twice 
in a summer was a little too much — when one is not rich ; I 
must get over it some way. 

While I was at Holsteinborg in August, Copenhagen was 
visited by a number of young and old French journalists. 
Their reception was so cordial, so much a matter of popular 
feeling, it was as if one had announced, " Here are faithful 
friends who come, children of France, our old a,lly." I heard 
through the papers of the entertainments given them and of 
the jovial days that passed, but it was not expedient for me to 
go to town and take part in the festivity. 

Just as the last French visitors were departing from Copen- 
hagen I entered the station and talked there with Edward 
Tarbe now director of " Le Gaulois," and with the author Vic- 
tor Tournel, who has since written an interesting and well con- 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 55 I 

* 
sidered work, " Le Danemark contemporain : Etudes et Sou- 
venirs d'un Voyageur." He was acquainted with several of 
my writings, and at his departure I expressed the hope that 
we might soon see each other in Paris. And this was the 
case. I could not longer resist the impulse to travel and to 
see the Exhibition in its complete magnificence before it 
should disappear, and then I could finish my story of " The 
Dryad." 

The first of September I set out. Robert Watt also desired 
to see the Exhibition again, and see it in its full flower, so we 
went together. The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, it. 
was a most striking journey. At Corsor we went on board 
the boat, which was loaded down with freight. In the rain and 
darkness one reeled over the deck, and flash succeeded flash. 
At daybreak we came to Kiel, and flew through Germany to 
reach Paris, but stopped to rest at Strasbourg. We reached 
there at evening. The tattoo beat so that the old timber work 
house in which we were shook. The old cathedral stood be- 
fore us, and cared very little about our visit in the morning : 
it had had a visit from the great world's storm king, his wife, 
and children, who had left their name carved upon the old 
bells so that they might ring it out to the world. The even- 
ing was fine ; I felt happy at once more being in France ; I 
was young again, as I always feel on a journey. " Two -an d- 
sixty years old," says the baptismal record ; " Two-and-sixty 
seconds," Eternity says. 

It was market day in Strasbourg, and it was not easy to 
press through the crowd to the church, so splendid with its fila- 
gree work in stone, as if it were all cast in a foundry, a beauti- 
ful picture of Gothic art. " Master Bloodless " stirred within 
in the great clock. The clock struck ten just then, and the 
figures started out. Death struck the strokes ; the old hour 
went and the new hour came and stood still and waited till 
the last stroke had sounded, when it began its own course. 
A crowd of strangers about us looked on j among them I dis- 
covered my good friend from Bordeaux, Francis Michel, the 
translator of the Basque folk-lore. 

We were soon in Paris, and again in the Aladdin's castle 
of our time, the wonderful Exhibition Palace, with a Fata 



552 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

Morgana in reality; the garden of enchantment, — with its 
flowers from South and North, the great aquaria where one, 
as if in a glass diving-bell in the sea or at the bottom of fresh 
water lakes, stood in the midst of a Hall of Fishes. I was 
filled with astonishment at all I saw. In a cafe where Danish 
t papers could be found I read in one of them a letter de- 
scribing the Exhibition, in which it was said that no one ex- 
cept Charles Dickens was enough of a writer to compose an 
artistic picture from this splendid performance. There was 
truth in that, and I began to mistrust myself in regard to the 
•work I had undertaken, and soon, while I was in Paris, I gave 
up the whole thing. The advantage I was to find, and for 
which I had travelled here a second time, was now lost, and I 
had myself to laugh at. I had not felt myself at home before 
in Paris ; but this year the Exhibition's fascination had ex- 
tended over the whole, and I felt myself borne along with the 
town of pleasure. 

The genial feuilletonist, the intellectual Philaret-Chasles, 
invited me to Mendon where he has a pretty country-seat 
with a cozy little garden. I met here a few of the French 
journalists who had visited Copenhagen. There was life and 
spirit here ! Toasts were drunk ; one speech followed another, 
like butterflies flitting over the table. Philaret-Chasles after- 
ward, at a lecture to the students in Paris, spoke warmly and 
highly of me and my stories. 

Several of those who had visited Copenhagen invited me 
and a few Danes to a supper. The editor of "La Situation " 
was there and several distinguished members of the press ; 
Edmond Tarbe, director of " Le Gaulois," who, beside his sin- 
gular journalistic capacity, has a decided musical talent; an in- 
heritance surely from his mother, who must rank among the 
best composers at Paris. Edmond Tarbe playedon the piano 
for us " The brave Soldier-boy/' and then the Danish popular 
piece " Roselil." There was a Danish character to the feast 
thus that made it very pleasant. 

I was in Mabille for the first time the next evening. I 
never before had been there. It was finely illuminated, and 
lights hung on the weeping-willows over the little ponds, 
while the moon shone softly, and there was a multitude of 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



553 



people. One of my young friends swung a Mabille beauty 
toward me and asked, " What do you say to such poetry as 
this — such a sight as this ? " I pointed to the moon which 
shone in all its glory, " I think that everlasting sight is better." 
" Monsieur ! " exclaimed the justly offended beauty. I stayed 
a quarter of an hour, and have in " The Dryad " given the im- 
pression of what I felt and saw. 

The time for departure from Paris drew near, and I left 
at the close of September. On the way home, I spent a few 
days at the gambling town of Baden Baden. In Mabille 
there was gayety ; I knew what it was : at Baden Baden there 
was a fine show, but the place had an unhappy, demoniacal 
look. The great, quiet gaming-hall, where the gold pieces 
rolled, was to me as if Satan himself were there invisibly ; 
there was silence and gloom. As soon as I had returned 
home to my hotel after my first visit, I wrote out my mood in a 
little poem : — 

THE GAMBLING-HOUSE. 

Could lights and pictures only call, 

They'd say, "Come to the feast, my friend ! " 
But silence dwelt in the splendid hall, 

One heard but the gold its message send. 
Young women sat with feverish breath 

And threw the gold, and staked their all ; 
There came a laugh like the laugh of death, — 

" I want a life in the gambling-hall." 
Splendor and quiet in the silent place, 
Dumb gold and throbbing pulse kept pace. 

Still, around the gambling-house, the baths, and the town, 
are mountains and woody charms, a great and noble castle 
ruin, — large trees growing in the knightly hall ; one sees from 
the hanging balconies, far out over the winding Rhine ^nto 
France, to the Vosges Mountains. 

My journey home was a hasty one, and it was only in 
Odense that I took a day and night for rest. The Danne- 
brog waved from the houses, new soldiers were to arrive. In 
the Riding-house there were preparations making for their re- 
ception. I was invited. The tables were loaded down with 
meat and drink. The ladies and their daughters in the town, 



554 THE ST0R Y OF MY LIFE. 

all appeared there as ready to serve. The soldiers came, gave 
a hurra, and sang songs, and made speeches. How changed 
for the better ! how bright and pleasant a time as compared 
with the old time which I knew. I spoke of this, and re- 
marked that when I was last here, in the Riding-house, a 
long time ago indeed, I was quite a little boy, and I saw a sol- 
dier run the gauntlet \ now I came and saw the soldiers, our 
defenders and guardians, greeted with song and speeches, and 
sit beneath the waving of flags. Blessed be our time ! 

A few of my friends said to me that I must come back here 
at least once a year, and not always go flying through my birth- 
place ; that it would make a celebration for me, and that I 
should certainly get an invitation in November. I had no 
inkling how great it was to be, to what a summit of fortune in 
my life I was to be raised. I answered that I was truly glad 
at their kind expressions, but added, — " Forget it then till 
1869, on the fourth of September, when it will be half a cent- 
ury since I left Odense for Copenhagen. The sixth of Sep- 
tember I was there, and that is the great day of my life, but 
it is not likely that any one would think of that. Rather let 
me come over here to Odense upon the semi-centennial of my 
departure." 

" It is all of two years till then," they answered. " One 
ought not to put off any good pleasure. We will see in No- 
vember." 

And so it came about. The old prophecy, made when I 
was a poor boy, going out from Odense, that the town would 
one day be illuminated for me, was fulfilled in the most beau- 
tiful shape. Late in November I received in Copenhagen a 
communication from the Common Council in Odense. 

" In the Odense Common Council : We herewith have the 
honor to announce to your Excellency that we have elected 
you an honorary burgher in your native town \ permit us to 
invite you to meet with us here in Odense on Friday, the sixth 
of December next ensuing, upon which day we desire to de- 
liver to you the certificate of citizenship." Then followed the 
signature. I replied : — 

" Last night I received the communication of the honorable 
Common Council, and hasten to present my sincere thanks. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 555 

My birthplace proffers me, through you, gentlemen, a mark of 
esteem greater than I ever dared dream of receiving. 

" It is this year forty-eight years since I, a poor boy, left 
my native place ; and now. rich in happy memories, I am re- 
ceived in it as a dear child is received in his father's house. 
You will understand my feelings. I am lifted up, not in vanity, 
but in thankfulness to God for the heavy hours of trial and 
the many days of blessing He has granted me. Accept the 
thanks of my whole heart. 

"It will give me great pleasure on the day appointed, the 
six December, if God grant me health, to meet with my noble 
friends in my beloved native town. 

" Your grateful and humble 

" H. C. Andersen." 

On the fourth of December I went to Odense. The weather 
had been cold and stormy ; I had a cold and suffered from 
toothache, but now the sun shone and it was quiet, pleasant 
weather. Bishop Engelstoft met me at the station, and took 
me to my home at the Bishop's house by Odense River, which 
I have described in my story of " The BelFs Hollow." Sev- 
eral of the town officers were invited to dinner, which went 
off pleasantly and with great liveliness. 

Now came the important sixth of December, my life's most 
beautiful feast. I could not sleep at night. I was oppressed 
in body and soul. I felt pains in my breast and my teeth 
ached, as if to remind me, — In all your honor, you are yet a 
child of mortality, a worm of the dust ; and I felt it not only 
in my body's aches, but in the humility of my soul. How 
should, how ought I to enjoy my incredible fortune ! I knew 
not. I was all in a tremble. 

I heard in the morning of the sixth of December that the 
town was beautifully decorated, that all the schools had a 
holiday, because it was my festival. I felt cast down, humble, 
and poor, as if I were standing before my God. There was a 
revelation to me of every evil thing within me, every fault and 
simple thought, word, and deed. Everything sprang forth 
strangely clear in my soul, as if it were the Day of Judgment, 
— and it was the day of my honor. God knows how mean I 
felt myself to be, when men so exalted and honored me. 



556 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

In the forenoon came the Chief of the Police, State Coun- 
cilor Koch, and Burgomaster Mourier, and escorted me to the 
Guild Hall, that I might receive my diploma of honorary citi- 
zenship. From almost all the houses in the streets through 
which we drove the Dannebrog waved. There was a great 
concourse of people from the town, and from the country, citi- 
zens and farmers. I heard the shouts of hurra, and before the 
Guild Hall I heard music ; the citizen's chorus was drawn up, 
and they sang melodies to my songs, " Gurre " and " I love 
thee, Denmark, father-land ! " I was overcome, and one can 
understand that I said as I must say to my two escorts, " What 
must it be to be carried to the place of execution ! I believe 
I understand the sensation now." 

The hall was filled with richly dressed ladies, and town 
officers in uniform and decorations. I saw citizens and peas- 
ants there. 

The " Funen Advertiser " gave the same day a sketch of 
the scene, as follows : — 

" At ten o'clock in the morning the poet H. C. Andersen 
was presented in the Guild Hall with the diploma of an hon- 
orary citizen. 'The Town Council, with whom the idea origi- 
nated, summoned him, by three gentlemen of their number, 
from the Bishop's house, where he is staying during his visit 
here. The police force was drawn up before the Guild Hall, 
and the music played " In Denmark was I born." 

" The remaining members of the council received the poet 
at the entrance, when he was escorted by the Burgomaster 
into the hall, which had been decorated with flags, flowers, 
and his own bust, while the ladies rose at his entrance. The 
Burgomaster, Councilor of Justice Mourier, spoke in behalf 
of the council, of the occasion upon which they were met, and 
assured the poet of the feelings of esteem and gratitude which 
the Danish people in general, but the inhabitants of Odense 
especially, bore toward the man who by his wonder stories, 
songs, and stories, had delighted and strengthened both young 
and old, not only in days of peace, but in time of war, and 
had brought honor and* renown to Denmark's name in foreign 
lands. 

" He delivered the diploma with the wish that the poet 



THE STORY OF MY LITE. 557 

might for many a year receive strength to increase the treas- 
ures with which he had enriched Danish literature. 

" A hearty three times three hurra for the honorary citizen 
showed that this wish found a response with all. In his reply 
the poet expressed himself nearly as follows : — 

" ' The great distinction which my native town has bestowed 
upon me overwhelms me and makes me proud. I must think 
of Oehlenschlager's Aladdin, who when by his wonderful lamp 
he had built his grand castle, stepped to the window and 
said : " Down there I walked a poor boy." So has God 
granted me such a spiritual lamp — Poesy ; and when its 
light shone over other countries, and men were pleased at it 
and gave it their praise, and said, that light shone from 
Denmark, — then my heart beat with happiness. I knew 
that at home I had sympathizing friends, and surely in the 
town where my cradle stood ; and it gives me on this day so 
honorable a proof of its sympathy, by bestowing upon me a 
distinction so overwhelmingly great, that I can only speak my 
thanks from the bottom of my heart.' " 

I was near to sinking, overcome by the whole scene. Only 
on the way back to the Bishop's house did I have eyes for the 
friendly countenances which greeted me. I heard the con- 
gratulations of the multitude ; I saw the waving flags ; but in 
my heart the thoughts knocked : What will the people every- 
where say to such a celebration being given me — how will the 
papers talk of it ? I felt that I could bear well enough any re- 
mark, that it was too great a thing to bestow on me ; but I 
could not bear that any unfavorable or unkind opinion should 
be spoken agakist my native place for so honoring me. 

It was, therefore, I confess, an unspeakable pleasure to me 
to see soon that all the newspapers, great and small, spoke with 
warm feeling of my festival in my native town. Even as soon 
as I had returned from the Guild Hall to the Bishop's house, 
I heard the first voice, one of the most eminent journals in 
Copenhagen, which had just come by the post, and brought 
me a heart greeting, and had only praise for my native town. 
It did me good, and gave me peace of mind and readiness for 
the great part of the celebration which yet awaited me during 
the day and evening. In " Dagbladet " of December sixth 
there read : — 



558 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

" State Councilor H. C. Andersen enjoys to-day a special 
honor, since he is presented in Odense with a diploma as 
honorary citizen in that his native town. It is seldom in our 
country that such a distinction is given ; but Odense has good 
reason to honor the poor workingman's son who went out from 
her, has won for himself a name which is mentioned with honor 
far beyond the narrow boundaries of his father-land, and so in 
return he has honored his country and the town where he was 
born. Many, certainly, whose thoughts to-day turn to the fes- 
tival at Odense, will receive a prominent place in H. C. An- 
dersen's ' Story of my Life/ and they send the poet their 
greeting and thanks for all that he has done for them and for 
us all." 

With more freedom than I had in the morning I drove now 
with the committee of invitation to the Guild Hall, and I had 
eyes for the first time to see the tasteful decorations. The band 
played melodies which belonged to my songs. The Funen 
"County Times," in its issue the next day, gave an account 
of the celebration, and its report is accurate and full : — 

" In the finely decorated hall of the Guild Hall the bust of 
the honored guest was placed on a pedestal in the centre of the 
room, surrounded by medallions, with the inscriptions : 'April 2 ' 
(the poet's birthday), 'September 4, 1819' (the day he left 
Odense), and l December 6, 1867.' In the afternoon, at four 
o'clock, as many men and women of different ranks were as- 
sembled as could find room (in all 250). The speaking opened 
with some words by the Burgomaster, Councilor of Justice 
Mourier, who gave the health of his majesty the King, remind- 
ing them that there was a good old custom in Denmark of al 
ways first drinking the King's health at every festive gathering 
The following song was then sung : — 

" ' Like the swan flying back to the place 
Where the nest of the baby bird lay ; 
And its fellows had little of grace 

For the poor little thing dressed in gray ; 

" ' Where it dreamed, lying hid all alone 
In the bushes that no one might see, 
And, strange among birds, made its moan, 
And sighed like its fellows to be. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 559 

M< They knew not its lineage, nor recked they 

That the dreaming had truth and gave might ; 
And soon o'er the sky 'twould be winging its way, 
In the luminous, musical swan flight : 

n * That wide o'er the land in its flight it should go, 
And wider by far should fly its renown, 
Till all the round world the dear name should know, 
And honor come back to the old native town : 

" ■ That deep in all hearts its music should chime, 
In the great and the small holding sway, 
Since always in memory it kept close the time 
When it too was little and gray. 

" ■ So thanks to thee, singer of magical art, 
For thy visit to childhood's old home ; 
It is proud of its son, and forth from each heart 
The musical thanksgivings come/ 

" Mr. Petersen said, — 'About fifty years ago a poor boy left 
his native town to begin the struggle of life. His departure 
was quiet and unnoticed, for no one knew him or thought any- 
thing of him. Two women, indeed, his mother and grand- 
mother, accompanied him a little way on the road, but their 
wishes and prayers followed him the whole journey. His first 
object was to reach the capital : there would he struggle to attain 
the great end of his life. In the great city he stood alone with- 
out friends or kinsmen ; but he began his struggle and he had 
in it two powerful supports : trust in Providence, that He would 
help him as there was need, and confidence in his own strength. 
The struggle was hard and bitter, and brought with it many 
wants ; but his strong will persistently carried him forward, and 
just this struggle and this want gave birth to his wonderful 
fancy with its exuberance and its lofty flight. The boy has 
become a man and stands to-day in the midst of us ; his name 
has in these latter days been upon all men's lips. Now has 
the conflict issued in victory : he stands here honored by kings 
and princes, but what is more, honored and esteemed by his 
fellow-citizens. As a poor testimony to this, the Common 
Council has elected him an honorary citizen of his native town, 
and has thereby gratified a cherished wish which grew out of 
an unusual harmony of feeling in the agreement to take this 



560 THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 

step, and the strong desire which has shown itself on the part 
of all to take part in the festival in his honor, but which, alas ! 
all could not share. But, in the name of all, the speaker would 
thank the honored guest for the warm, living words which 
came crowding from his heart, and thank him for words which 
he had sent forth into the world, and for all that he had given 
his father-land. However much he had wandered, he never 
had forgotten that, — never had forgotten he was a Dane, and 
that his cradle stood here in our town. So then a viva for 
our honorary citizen, the poet Hans Christian Andersen.' 
(Tumultuous applause.) 

" State Councillor H. C. Andersen thanked them, deeply 
affected. He had come back here willingly to think upon the 
days of his childhood and the memories that flowed from them. 
Three memories especially centred about this hall in his mind. 
The first of coming as a boy and seeing a wax figure exhibi- 
tion ■ he was greatly astonished then at seeing the kings and 
princes and the world's celebrated men represented. Another 
time he saw a festival in the hall ; an old town musician took 
him. to see it. It was a celebration of the King's birthday, and 
from the orchestra in the brightly illuminated hall he looked 
out upon the dancers, among whom he recognized several. The 
third reminiscence dated from this day, when he himself now 
stood as a guest in the hall, and met with so much unexpected 
cordiality. It all came to him as a wonder story ; but he had 
indeed learned that life itself is the most beautiful wonder story. 

" After a double quartette had sung the song, ' In Denmark 
was I born : there have I my home,' Bishop Engelstoft took up 
his parable : — 

" ' The poet's charming words in this song, and many other 
of his pieces, carry our thoughts out from this assembly into 
the greater public of which our circle is only a little part : but 
both have the same stamp, the spirit which gives U unity with- 
out and within. All history teaches that it is the spirit which 
is the chief spring in the lives of people as well as of individ- 
uals. It was just this spirit which bore Denmark's name into 
the world and gave it honor, from Tycho Brahe and Ole 
Romer down to H. C. Orsted, frr a Holberg to the great 
man of our day. This spirit gave Ae little nation strength to 

/' 
/ 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 56 1 

bear heavy fate and to stand against assaults made on its very 
existence, power to hold out and to join again what had been 
separated by violence, but stamped with the same spirit of the 
nation. So in peaceful contests this spirit had given Denmark 
honor, and confidence gave promise of a blessing which this 
spirit would bring about assuredly in the time to come ; and 
when we remember with thankfulness all the mighty power of 
a national spirit, let us wish then that our father-land may find 
many honored sons who will offer all their strength and fire to 
this end. Fortune and blessing abide on old Denmark.' 

" State Councilor Koit wished to propose a health to H. C. 
Andersen's wife. Ah, he saw very well that people opened 
their eyes, that they knew quite positively that Andersen was 
not married. But he had for all that a wife. Was it asked how 
she looked ? On one side it might be very correctly answered 
that she only existed in his poetic fancy ; on the other, that she 
was in a thousand, yes a hundred thousand specimens, and 
every lawful husband believes that he is in possession of the 
one right person. That is quite true, because all the wives 
say with Andersen in his story, — ' What the good-man does is 
sure to be right ! ' How often does it not happen to us, as in 
the Wonder Story, that we barter a good horse away and at last 
come home to the mother with a bag of rotten apples, and get 
the promise of being called blockhead when we shall get 
home 1 but the mother proves to be good, and looks at the best 
of the thing. So a health for Andersen's wife, — for her who 
creates a paradise for us all our life long and grows always 
more beautiful. 

" H. C. Andersen returned thanks for the health, remind- 
ing them of the old-fashioned custom that wreathed the cup 
with flowers : so he could wish to adorn his books with a 
wreath, and let the leaves bear the names of all the noble 
women who were present. 

" Colonel Vanpell then spoke : ' It is quite true, as the 
previous speaker has said, that a beautiful rose garland of 
women surrounds our honored guest ; but what shall one say 
of the children, for there are many of them here. We soldiers 
think a good deal of children, and they think a good deal of 
us. We see that when we come to our quarters. But An- 
36 



562 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

dersen's children we love most of all ; they always seem to 
lead us the right way. When we knew not how far we dared 
go, then Andersen sang : " I cannot stay ; I have no rest ; I 
must away to the war." He called on us ; he called on 
friends in the North, while he sang, — 

" One folk are we, of Scandinavian name." 

Andersen is of Palnatoke's kin from the same isle, and he 
shows us what we should fight for. He tells us of " Holger 
the Dane ; " yes, he is our travelling companion to the end. 
There is joy when he sends us a Christmas greeting; as the 
child opens a box with tin soldiers, so do we open every new 
book, sure to find in it a new " Tin Soldier." There is a joy 
every time there is a " Barselstue " * at H. C. Andersen's 
house ; and so a health to his children who are already born, 
and to those yet to come ? ' 

" The School Inspector Moller desired to bring the chil- 
dren's thanks to the poet. The speaker gave this offering, both 
because he was himself a great admirer of Andersen's stories, 
and because he was naturally a representative of the children. 
He had been going about this year among the schools, and 
had told the sixteen hundred children who came under his in- 
spection about the man whom we honor to-day. He had 
told them that this man had sat upon the same school bench 
as they, and he had advised them to follow his illustrious 
example. In the children's name the speaker gave thanks, 
because Andersen had shown us what faith was, and taught 
us to see the spirit in nature, and the spirit in men's lives. 
Our times were skeptical, and the material held sway ; but there 
still could be born a man who told us of l Thumbling,' of the 
' Sea-maid,' of ' Agnete/ and who through these opened our ears 
for the music of nature. Andersen had been pretty severe. He 
had chastised affectation, and whipped folly and vanity (which 
the speaker demonstrated by citing several of Andersen's sto- 
ries) ; but he had told the truth : he had shown that nobility 
could be hidden in poverty (' She was good for Nothing ' and 

1 Referring to one of Andersen's comedies, suggested by a play of Hol- 
berg's, and based on an old custom by which one room in the house was 
set apart as a lying-in chamber, where the new mother received the con- 
gratulations of friends. 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE, 563 

1 The Tin Soldier '), and therefore ought thanks to be given by 
the children, to whom he had given the most beautiful gifts in 
life. 

" Procurator Chancellor Petersen recited a poem in Ander- 
sen's honor, and addressed himself to the poet as the friend of 
his youth and schoolmate. He thanked him for his contin- 
ued friendship, and proposed again to empty a glass to the 
poet's honor. 

" County Provost Svitzer would turn his thoughts to that 
which lies nearest to us. It does our town honor that Ander- 
sen should go forth from it, and he is now bound fast to us by 
still tighter bonds. It is an honor to the town that it has 
such a man for a citizen ; but it is also an honor to the town 
that it has elected him to that place and that all should come 
to the festival, for it showed that they had a regard for- the 
good and the beautiful. It is an honor to be a citizen of 
Odense ; it is always going forward ; it does not know what 
standing still means. He hoped that this progress might con- 
tinue in the future, and this hope he would express in a viva 
for Odense's citizens. 

" Then Andersen said he could compare his life with a 
building, and he ventured then to name two men, Collin and 
H. C. Orsted, who had stood steadfastly by him and helped 
him forward. Now he could say that the building was ready, 
and as people were wont to place a garland on a building 
when completed, his should be a return of thanks to the Com- 
mon Council and to the Odense Commonalty, in which he saw 
with pleasure that not only material things, but goodness and 
beauty also blossomed with flowers. He would fain address 
some chosen words to all who had afforded him his great 
pleasure this day, and his thanks should be all summed up in 
a viva for Odense town. 

"With that the ceremonies closed, and shortly after the 
young people began to come. Before the dancing was begun, 
the children sang a welcome to the poet H. C. Andersen : — 

" ' There, where the street turns round, 
A little house is found, 
And there, say the wise men, 
The stork brought Andersen. 
Ole came, the lively fellow, 



5^4 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

And hoisted his umbrella ; 

While dreams about the baby flocked, 

His cradle the Nis gladly rocked. 

" ' Here he sat by the river side, 
And mermaids, mermen there he spied ; 
And when on the mossy bank he walked, 
With Elder Mother then he talked. 
Christmas came, blustering, raw, 
And the Snow-queen white he saw, — 
Whate'er it was that charmed his heart, 
He let us freely have a part. 

" ' Thanks for every hour we've had 
Round the table he makes glad. 
The lamp burns bright while mother sews, 
And father reads what every one knows ; 
Prince and Princess, King and Queen, 
Forth they come upon the scene ; 
Dance the elves, the troll alarms, 
Tin-soldiers stand and shoulder arms. 

" ' With fairy shoes thy feet were shod, 
And so in royal homes they trod ; 
While still thy name the children know 
Wherever Tuk and Ida go. 
Take, thou poet of the children's play, 
Take the youngsters' thanks to-day ; 
We cannot grasp with a very big hand, 
So take our both as here we stand.' 

" In the course of the evening H. C. Andersen gave the per- 
sons present great pleasure by reading two of his stories. 
During the dancing there was received from his majesty the 
King the telegram given below, which was received with un- 
bounded applause. 

" A great torch-light procession, in which all the corporations 
of the town with their colors took part, and which numbered 
a hundred and fifty torches, marched about eight o'clock to 
the Guild Hall, and brought H. C. Andersen the congratula- 
tions of the united craftsmen on the occasion of his nomina- 
tion to honorary citizenship in our town, and expressed the 
hope that for many a year he might labor for his own pros- 
perity and for the honor of old Denmark. H. C. Andersen 
begged the deputation to convey to the gathering a hearty 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 565 

greeting and thanks from him for all the honor they had 
shown him. In his childhood it had been predicted, he said, 
that his native place would one day be illuminated in his 
honor, and when he now cast a glance over the square and 
saw the many burning torches, he must perforce see in this 
the fulfillment of the prediction. The deputation then handed 
him the song which the workmen wished to sing to him there 
in the square. 

" After it had been sung there was a long live the honored 
guest and poet ! which was followed by a prolonged hurra. 
At that H. C. Andersen stepped forward to an open window 
and thanked the workmen for the honor they had shown him, 
saying that this day and evening would hold their place as the 
dearest recollections of his life. Thereupon the torches were 
all thrown in a heap on the pavement and the procession dis- 
banded. 

" During the festivities several congratulatory telegrams 
came to Andersen. Among them we should especially men- 
tion the following : — 

" From his majesty the King : ' To the distinction shown 
you to-day by the citizens of your native town, I and my 
family add our sincere congratulations. Christian Rex/ 

" From the seniory of the Students' Association : ' The Stu- 
dents' Association sends its greeting to the poet H. C. Ander- 
sen on his day of honor, with thanks for the past and best 
wishes for the future.' 

" From Slagelse : ' The Slagelse Workingmen's Union, 
which holds a special meeting this evening in honor of the 
distinguished men who graduated from Slagelse Latin School, 
sends you, dear Hon. State Councilor, as one of those, the 
heartiest and most affectionate greeting.' " 

Such was the pleasure throughout the country over my rare 
and beautiful festival ; and needs must there have been in 
my heart profound feelings and varying movements. How 
could people dream that so much should be granted me — 
that was the thought which constantly pressed upon me and 
cast a shadow over all the splendor and pleasure, which I 
ought to have been enjoying every moment. Then came the 



566 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

first telegram, from the Students' Association, lifting my heart 
I saw that the academic youth shared my pleasure and did 
not envy me it. Then came a dispatch from a private circle 
of young students in Copenhagen, then from the association 
at Slagelse. It will be remembered that I went to school 
there, and thereby was attached to the town. Soon there 
followed messages from congratulatory friends in Aarhuus, in 
Stege ; telegram after telegram came from every quarter. One 
of these was read aloud by State Councilor Koch ; it was a 
congratulation from his majesty the King and the royal 
family. The assembly broke forth in applause : " How fine it 
is ! how hearty ! " Every cloud and shadow in my soul van- 
ished. Now began the children's part. An arm-chair was 
placed for me in the middle of the hall, and two by two came 
gayly dressed children, who danced in a ring about me and 
sang their song. How happy I was, and yet — up to heaven's 
height man dare not exalt himself. I should and must feel 
that I was only a poor child of humanity bound by earthly 
frailty. I suffered from a dreadful toothache, which, with the 
heat and the excitement I was in, became excessive, but I 
read a wonder story for the little friends. Then the deputa- 
tion came from the corporations of the town, who with torches 
and waving banners came through the streets to the Guild 
Hall. 

I was to fulfill the prophecy which the old woman made 
when as a boy I left my birthplace, — Odense should be illu- 
minated for me. I stepped to the open window ; there was a 
blaze of light from the torches, the place was quite full of 
people. They sang, and I was overcome in my soul. I was 
physically overcome indeed, and could not enjoy this summit 
of fortune in my life. The toothache was intolerable ; the icy 
air which rushed in at the window made it blaze up into a 
terrible pain, and in place of fully enjoying the good fortune 
of these minutes, which never would be repeated, I looked at 
the printed song to see how many verses there were to be 
sung before I could slip away from the torture which the cold 
air sent through my teeth. It was the pitch of suffering; 
when the flames of the torches piled together sank down, then 
my pain decreased. How thankful was I to God. Gentle 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 567 

eyes looked upon me from all sides, every one wished to speak 
to me, to press my hand. Weaned out, I reached the Bish- 
op's house and sought rest, but I did not get it until the 
morning hour, so rilled to overflowing was I. 

I wrote at once to his majesty the King and expressed my 
deeply felt thanks ; I wrote to the Students' Association and to 
the Workingmen's Union, and now I received many visits. 
Especially must I mention an old widow who as a child had 
been a boarder for a short time with my parents ; she wept for 
gladness over my life's career, and told how she had stood in 
the evening with the torch-light procession on the square and 
seen the parade : " It was just as it was for the King and 
Queen when they were here." Then she had thought of my 
parents, and upon me as a little boy ; she had talked about it 
with several old people who stood by her ; she had wept and 
they had wept, that the poor boy should so turn out and be 
honored like a king. 

In the evening there was a large company at the Bishop's 
house, at least a couple of hundred people. I read a wonder 
story to them, and afterward the young people danced. 

The day after I went to each of the Common Council, and 
sought out and found a number of acquaintances whom I had 
known as a child. There was still living one of the poet 
Hans Christian Bunkeflod's daughters, Susanne. I went to the 
old house where I had passed my childhood. A picture of 
this was shortly after the festival given in the " Illustrated 
Times." I went to the charity school where I had learned 
my lessons when I was a little boy. 

The Odense Musical Society invited me to a concert at the 
Guild Hall. I was given the place of honor. In the " Funen 
Advertiser," the account ran : — 

" The last public mark of respect on the occasion of the 
poet's reception as an honorary citizen of Odense took place 
on Saturday evening in the Guild Hall Saloon, at the Musical 
Society's first concert of the season. The management had 
invited the poet to this assembly, and a more fitting close 
could not have been thought of, nor could any act have been 
more graceful," etc. " As many people had crowded to the 
concert as the hall would contain, nearly five hundred. At 



568 THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 

about eight o'clock the honored guest entered, and was re- 
ceived with a blast of trumpets, while the whole assembly 
rose and the chorus sang a welcome to the poet." 

The day before my departure occurred the yearly feast in 
the so-called Lahn's Institution for Poor Children, girls and 
boys, who are here educated and clothed until their Confirma- 
tion. I was among those invited. The feast was for me a 
very significant knot that tied all together in the speaking that 
was there done. Lahn's portrait hung adorned with flowers 
on the wall. Who was Lahn ? many asked. He was born in 
Odense, a poor boy who learned to sew gloves, went out into 
the country and sold them, and so got to Hamburg \ and the 
Odense Lahn gloves became soon an article much inquired 
after. He came to great position, was a rich man, built him- 
self a house in Odense on Nether Street, never was married, 
but did much good, and when he died he bequeathed a legacy 
for the education and clothing of poor children and gave his 
house for the Institution. He lies buried in the Virgin's 
Church grave-yard in Odense. The tombstone says, " Here 
lies Lahn whose monument stands on Nether Street." 

Upon the wall in the school-room there hung another pic- 
ture by the side of Lahn's, a portrait of an old woman; she 
had many years had her little stand on the street and sold 
apples, but now had been some time dead. As a child she 
had until her Confirmation been an inmate of Lahn's Institu- 
tion ; and when she died it was found that by great simplicity 
of life and frugality she had hoarded a few hundred rix-dol- 
lars, which she bequeathed to Lahn's Institution, and so her 
picture now hung there by the side of Lahn's. 

A young and talented man, the School Inspector, Pastor 
Moller, made a speech to them at the festival, and spoke of 
all the famous men and women in Denmark, concluding with 
the words : " You all know whose festival it is that has been 
celebrated here the last few days. You have seen how a man 
from our town has been welcomed and honored, and he has 
sat upon just such a bench for poor children as you sit on. 
He is here among us." I saw the eyes about me moist with 
feeling, and then I bowed to the company, and took the hand 
of some of the mothers, and as I left I heard several exclaim, 
" God roak^ ^ irn happy x^r] bl^ss bi'ro ' " 



THE STORY OF MY LIFE. 



569 



It was a festival for Lahn \ it was a blessed one for me. 
It was as if one sunbeam after another shone into my heart. 
I could not comprehend it. In such a moment one clings to 
God as in the bitterest hour of sorrow. 

Now came the day of departure, the eleventh of December. 
People come crowding into the railway station, so that it was 
rilled with them. My lady friends brought me flowers. The 
train came which I was to take, and it stopped only for a few 
minutes. The Burgomaster, Herr Mourier, bade me good-by. 
I uttered my farewell \ the loud, repeated hurras rang forth, 
they were lost in the air as we moved away, but still from 
single groups of people in the town and near by the shouts 
continued to be sent up. Now first as I sat quite alone, did 
there seem to rise into one great account all the honor, glad- 
ness, and glory which had been given me by God in my 
native town. 

The greatest, the highest blessing I could attain was now 
mine. Now for the first time could I fully and devoutly 
thank my God and pray, — 

" Leave me not when the days of trial come." 

Copenhagen, March 29, 1869. 



THE END, 




